Search results for: idea and belief

Authors: Mahdi Biabanaki

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Religion is present in all human societies and has been for tens of thousands of years. What is noteworthy is that although religious traditions vary in different societies, there are considerable similarities in their religious beliefs. In all human cultures, for example, there is a widespread belief in the afterlife. Cognitive science of Religion (CSR), an emerging branch of cognitive science, searches for the root of these widespread similarities and the widespread prevalence of beliefs such as beliefs in the afterlife in common mental structures among humans. Accordingly, the cognitive architecture of the human mind has evolved to produce such beliefs automatically and non-reflectively. For CSR researchers, belief in the afterlife is an intuitive belief resulting from the functioning of mental tools. Our purpose in this article is to extract and evaluate the cognitive explanations presented in the CSR field for explaining beliefs in the afterlife. Our research shows that there are two basic theories in this area of CSR, namely "intuitive dualism" and "simulation constraint" theory. We show that these two theories face four major challenges and limitations in explaining belief in the afterlife: inability to provide a causal explanation, inability to explain cultural/religious differences in afterlife belief, the lack of distinction between the natural and the rational foundations of belief in the afterlife and disregarding the supernatural foundations of the afterlife belief.

Keywords: afterlife, cognitive science of religion, intuitive dualism, simulation constraint

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Authors: Sapora Sipon, Mohd Fo’ad Sakdan, Che Su Mustaffa, Najib Ahmad Marzuki, Mohamad Sukeri Khalid, Mohd Taib Ariffin, Husni Mohd Radzi, Salhah Abdullah

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Flood disasters occur throughout the world including Malaysia. The major flood disaster that hit Malaysia in the 2014-2015 episodes proved the psychosocial and mental health consequences such as vivid images of destruction, upheaval, death and loss of lives. Flood, flood survivors reported that flood has changed one looks at their religious belief. The main objective of this paper is to investigate the changes in religious belief after the 2014-2015 Malaysia flood disaster. The total population of 1300 respondents who experienced the 2014-2015 Malaysia flood were surveyed a month after the disaster. The questionnaires were used to measure religiosity and stress. The results provide compelling evidence that religion played an important role in the lives of Malaysia flood disasters’ survivor where more than half of the respondents (>75%) experiencing the strengthening of their religious belief. It was also reported the victims’ strengthening of their religious belief proved to be a powerful factor in reducing stress in the aftermath of the flood.

Keywords: religious belief, flood disaster, humanity, society

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Authors: H. Moalla, A. Frikha

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Multi-criteria decision aid methods consider decision problems where numerous alternatives are evaluated on several criteria. These methods are used to deal with perfect information. However, in practice, it is obvious that this information requirement is too much strict. In fact, the imperfect data provided by more or less reliable decision makers usually affect decision results since any decision is closely linked to the quality and availability of information. In this paper, a PROMETHEE-BELIEF approach is proposed to help multi-criteria decisions based on incomplete information. This approach solves problems with incomplete decision matrix and unknown weights within PROMETHEE method. On the base of belief function theory, our approach first determines the distributions of belief masses based on PROMETHEE’s net flows and then calculates weights. Subsequently, it aggregates the distribution masses associated to each criterion using Murphy’s modified combination rule in order to infer a global belief structure. The final action ranking is obtained via pignistic probability transformation. A case study of real-world application concerning the location of a waste treatment center from healthcare activities with infectious risk in the center of Tunisia is studied to illustrate the detailed process of the BELIEF-PROMETHEE approach.

Keywords: belief function theory, incomplete information, multiple criteria analysis, PROMETHEE method

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Authors: Saied Farham-Nia, Alireza Ghaffari-Hadigheh

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Game theory is a mathematical tool to study the behaviors of a rational and strategic decision-makers, that analyze existing equilibrium in interest conflict situation and provides an appropriate mechanisms for cooperation between two or more player. Game theory is applicable for any strategic and interest conflict situation in politics, management and economics, sociology and etc. Real worlds’ decisions are usually made in the state of indeterminacy and the players often are lack of the information about the other players’ payoffs or even his own, which leads to the games in uncertain environments. When historical data for decision parameters distribution estimation is unavailable, we may have no choice but to use expertise belief degree, which represents the strength with that we believe the event will happen. To deal with belief degrees, we have use uncertainty theory which is introduced and developed by Liu based on normality, duality, subadditivity and product axioms to modeling personal belief degree. As we know, the personal belief degree heavily depends on the personal knowledge concerning the event and when personal knowledge changes, cause changes in the belief degree too. Uncertainty theory not only theoretically is self-consistent but also is the best among other theories for modeling belief degree on practical problem. In this attempt, we primarily reintroduced Expected Utility Function in uncertainty environment according to uncertainty theory axioms to extract payoffs. Then, we employed Nash Equilibrium to investigate the solutions. For more practical issues, Stackelberg leader-follower Game and Bertrand Game, as a benchmark models are discussed. Compared to existing articles in the similar topics, the game models and solution concepts introduced in this article can be a framework for problems in an uncertain competitive situation based on experienced expert’s belief degree.

Keywords: game theory, uncertainty theory, belief degree, uncertain expected value, Nash equilibrium

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Authors: Jonali Baruah, Keesha Green

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This experimental study examines the effects of anonymity in video meeting groups across the stages of innovation (idea generation, selection, and refinement) on various measures of creativity. A sample of 92 undergraduate students participated in small groups of three to four members to complete creativity, decision-making, and idea-refinement task in either anonymous or identified conditions. The study followed two anonymity (anonymous and identified) X 3 stages of innovation (idea generation, idea selection, and idea refinement) in a mixed factorial design. Results revealed that the anonymous groups produced ideas of the highest average quality in the refinement phase of innovation. The results of this study enhanced our understanding of the productivity and creativity of groups in computer-mediated communication.

Keywords: creativity, anonymity, idea-generation, idea-refinement, innovation

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Authors: Nikolaos Souvlakis

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One of the prominent phenomena that have survived even in the 21st century, when science is gaining more and more space in the scientific world, is the evil eye within non-Westernized societies and more specifically in Greek culture. The presentation is based on the Christian Orthodox beliefs and folklore about the evil eye. Evil eye occupies an important role in individuals' everyday life and it is fuelled by Satanic powers. Satanic powers and the belief on them have an immense effect on individual's well-being and mental health causing spiritual suffering. The present paper examines the psychological manifestations of the belief of evil eye in individuals' mental health and the ways to protect from it according to the Greek Orthodox tradition.

Keywords: spirituality, belief, evil eye, mental health, well-being, healing

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Authors: Prih Bukhari

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The purpose of the proposed paper is to determine if the perception of online advertisement formed due to attitude and belief vary among two different countries or not. Specifically, it seeks to find out how people from China and Pakistan perceive online advertisement. Public attitude and belief towards advertising have been a focus of attention to explore a path to a better strategy of advertising. The ‘belief’ factor was analyzed through 4 items, i.e., product information, entertainment, and increase in economy’ whereas, the ‘attitude’ factor was analyzed thorough questions based on 4 items, i.e. ‘overall, I consider online advertising a good thing’; 'overall, I like online advertising’; ‘'I consider online advertising very essential’; and 'I would describe my overall attitude toward online advertising very favorably’. As such, it provides theoretical basis to explain similarities and differences of beliefs and attitude towards advertising across the two countries. Given its mixed method approach, both quantitative and qualitative method is used to carry out research. A questionnaire-based survey and focus group interviews were conducted. The sample size was of 500 participants. For analysis survey copies were then collected from which 497 were received whereas focus group interviews were collected from both nations. The findings showed that the belief factor among both countries had no significant relation with the perception of online advertisement. However, the attitude had a significant relation with the perception about online advertisement. Also it was observed that despite of different backgrounds, perception about online advertisement based on beliefs and attitude were found largely to be similar. Implications and future studies are provided.

Keywords: attitude, belief, online advertisement, perception

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Authors: Hannah Jennica P. Ello, Regina Via G. Garcia

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Films are famous expressions of art in the country. As an expression of art, it serves as a medium in which a culture is reflected. This paper studied how films reflected the Filipino culture. In this study, social semiotics was used to analyze the semiotic resources identified in the film. The films studied were 'Feng Shui', 'Sukob', and 'The Healing', which were three of the highest grossing horror films of Chito S. Roño. The objectives of the paper were (1) to identify the semiotic resources in the film, (2) to extract their meanings, and (3) to determine how these resources were perceived in the Filipino culture. The semiotic resources identified in each film are organized into three categories: color, practices and supernatural occurrences. Each semiotic resource is analyzed through the four dimensions of social semiotics, genre, style, modality, and discourse. For color, some of the semiotic resources identified are red, white and blue; for practices, Hagiolatry, and Mariolatry, faith healing and the belief in superstitions; and for supernatural occurrences, haunting ghosts, doppelganger attacks and returning from the dead were identified. The practices that are prominent in the films are Hagiolatry and Mariolatry, belief in feng shui and belief in faith healers and albularyos. The belief of these practices shows that Filipinos have a dual faith; belief in religion and a belief in superstitions. In short, Filipinos highly practice folk Catholicism and because of this, a mixture of different cultures can be seen, as having molded the Filipino culture to what it is today.

Keywords: culture, film, semiotics, social semiotics

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Authors: Sagir M. Yusuf, Chris Baber

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We describe issues bedeviling the coordination of heterogeneous (different sensors carrying agents) multi-agent missions such as belief conflict, situation reasoning, etc. We applied Bayesian and agents' presumptions inferential reasoning to solve the outlined issues with the heterogeneous multi-agent belief variation and situational-base reasoning. Bayesian Belief Network (BBN) was used in modeling the agents' belief conflict due to sensor variations. Simulation experiments were designed, and cases from agents’ missions were used in training the BBN using gradient descent and expectation-maximization algorithms. The output network is a well-trained BBN for making inferences for both agents and human experts. We claim that the Bayesian learning algorithm prediction capacity improves by the number of training data and argue that it enhances multi-agents robustness and solve agents’ sensor conflicts.

Keywords: distributed constraint optimization problem, multi-agent system, multi-robot coordination, autonomous system, swarm intelligence

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Authors: Xiaoqi Jia, Qing Zhu, Hao Zhang, Su Yang

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A gender recognition system is able to tell the gender of the given person through a few of frontal facial images. An effective gender recognition approach enables to improve the performance of many other applications, including security monitoring, human-computer interaction, image or video retrieval and so on. In this paper, we present an effective method for gender classification task in frontal facial images based on deep belief networks (DBNs), which can pre-train model and improve accuracy a little bit. Our experiments have shown that the pre-training method with DBNs for gender classification task is feasible and achieves a little improvement of accuracy on FERET and CAS-PEAL-R1 facial datasets.

Keywords: gender recognition, beep belief net-works, semi-supervised learning, greedy-layer wise RBMs

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Authors: Dujrudee Chinwong, Chanida Prompantakorn, Ubonphan Chaichana, Surarong Chinwong

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Objective: Understanding the university students’ perceptions on smoking caused lung cancer based on the Health Belief Model should help health care providers in assisting them to quit smoking. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the University students’ health belief in smoking behaviors caused lung cancer, which based on the Health Belief Model. Methods: Data were collected from voluntary participants using a self-administered questionnaire. Participants were students studying at a University in northern Thailand who were current smokers; they were selected using snowball sampling. Results: Of 361 students, 84% were males; 78% smoked not more than 10 cigarettes a day; 68% intended to quit smoking. Our findings, based on the health belief model, showed that 1) perceived susceptibility: participants strongly believed that if they did not stop smoking, they were at high risk of lung cancer (88%); 2) perceived severity: they strongly believed that they had a high chance of death from lung cancer if they continued smoking (84%); 3) perceived benefits: they strongly believed that quitting smoking could reduce the chance of developing lung cancer; 4) perceived barriers of quitting smoking: they strongly believed in the difficulty of quitting smoking because it needed a high effort and strong intention (69%); 5) perceived self-efficacy: however, they strongly believed that they can quit smoking right away if they had a strong intention to quit smoking (70%); 6) cues to action: they strongly believed in the support of parents (85%) and lovers (78%) in helping them to quit smoking. Further, they believed that limitation on smoking area in the University and smoking cessation services provided by the University can assist them to quit smoking. Conclusion: The Health Belief Model helps us to understand students’ smoking behaviors caused lung cancer. This could lead to designing a smoking cessation program to assist students to quit smoking.

Keywords: health belief model, lung cancer, smoking, Thailand

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Authors: K. Aisultanova, O. Abdimanuly

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The article is told about the factors influencing the formation of the national idea and national identity. Paying attention to the idea and purpose of 'Eternal county', historical dates and examples are given. The structure of the idea 'The eternal country' by ancient Turks is discussed and the history of the legend prevalent among the Kazakh people, the image of the mythical historical figures are analyzed. Al-Farabi’s philosophical work 'Honest city', Zhysip Balasagun’s poem 'Happy Knowledge' are told, the opinions of scholars researching the nation's history, literature, and culture are given. As international experience shows, the idea of a new stage in the development of the country's great national society and the state for the purpose of political, social, economic, cultural, spiritual, and the other efforts are consolidated. The idea of the national, ethnic, religious, cultural and other communities united by a group of people sharing a collective memory, goals, ideas and dreams and , world view, a complex set of beliefs and values are expressed.

Keywords: independence, historical process, national idea, the national ideology, society, state

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Authors: Ali Soroush, Mehdi Mirzaei Alavijeh, Touraj Ahmadi Jouybari, Fazel Zinat-Motlagh, Abbas Aghaei, Mari Ataee

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Diabetes is a disease with long cardiovascular, renal, ophthalmic and neural complications. It is prevalent all around the world including Iran, and its prevalence is increasing. The aim of this study was to determine the factors related to self-care behavior based on health belief model among sample of Iranian diabetic patients. This cross-sectional study was conducted among 301 type 2 diabetic patients in Gachsaran, Iran. Data collection was based on an interview and the data were analyzed by SPSS version 20 using ANOVA, t-tests, Pearson correlation, and linear regression statistical tests at 95% significant level. Linear regression analyses showed the health belief model variables accounted for 29% of the variation in self-care behavior; and perceived severity and perceived self-efficacy are more influential predictors on self-care behavior among diabetic patients.

Keywords: diabetes, patients, self-care behaviors, health belief model

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Authors: Silvia Boschetti, Jakub Binter, Robin Kopecký, Lenka PříPlatová, Jaroslav Flegr

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A strict dichotomy was present between religion and science, but recently, cognitive science focusses on the impact of supernatural beliefs on cognitive processes such as pattern recognition. It has been hypothesized that cognitive and perceptual processes have been under evolutionary pressures that ensured amplified perception of patterns, especially when in stressful and harsh conditions. The pattern detection in religious and non-religious individuals after induction of negative, anxious mood shall constitute a cornerstone of the general role of anxiety, cognitive bias, leading towards or against the by-product hypothesis, one of the main theories on the evolutionary studies of religion. The apophenia (tendencies to perceive connection and meaning on unrelated events) and perception of visual patterns (or pateidolia) are of utmost interest. To capture the impact of culture and upbringing, a comparative study of two European countries, the Czech Republic (low organized religion participation, high esoteric belief) and Italy (high organized religion participation, low esoteric belief), are currently in the data collection phase. Outcomes will be presented at the conference. A battery of standardized questionnaires followed by pattern recognition tasks (the patterns involve color, shape, and are of artificial and natural origin) using an experimental method involving the conditioning of (controlled, laboratory-induced) stress is taking place. We hypothesize to find a difference between organized religious belief and personal (esoteric) belief that will be alike in both of the cultural environments.

Keywords: culture, esoteric belief, pattern perception, religiosity

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Authors: Hui-Yu Peng, Hsiu-I Hsueh, Li-Ming Chen

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Most studies focused on bullying behaviors among students, however few research concerns about teachers’ bullying behaviors against students. In order to have more understandings and reduce teacher bullying, it is important to examine what factors may affect teachers’ bullying behaviors. This study aimed to explore the connections between different psychological variables and teacher bullying. Four variables, neuroticism, extraversion, teacher-student relationship, and belief in a just world for others (BJW-others), were selected in this study. Four hundred and five elementary and secondary school teachers in Taiwan endorsed the self-reported surveys. Multiple regression method was used to analyze data. Results revealed that teachers’ BJW-others and extraversion did not have significant correlations with teacher bullying scores. However, closed teacher-student relationship and neuroticism can negatively and positively predict teachers’ bullying behaviors against students, respectively. Implications for preventing teacher bullying were discussed at the end of this study.

Keywords: belief in a just world for others, big five personality traits, teacher bullying, teacher-student relationship

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Authors: Arezoo Fallahi

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Introduction: Exposure to second-hand smoke is an important global health problem and threatens the health of people, especially children and women. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of education based on the Health Belief Model on preventive behaviors of exposure to second-hand smoke in women. Materials and Methods: This experimental study was performed in 2022 in Sanandaj, west of Iran. Seventy-four people were selected by simple random sampling and divided into an intervention group (37 people) and a control group (37 people). Data collection tools included demographic characteristics and a second-hand smoke exposure questionnaire based on the Health Beliefs Model. The training in the intervention group was conducted in three one-hour sessions in the comprehensive health service centers in the form of lectures, pamphlets, and group discussions. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 21 and statistical tests such as correlation, paired t-test, and independent t-test. Results: The intervention and control groups were homogeneous before education. They were similar in terms of mean scores of the Health Belief Model. However, after an educational intervention, some of the scores increased, including the mean perceived sensitivity score (from 17.62±2.86 to 19.75±1.23), perceived severity score (28.40±4.45 to 31.64±2), perceived benefits score (27.27±4.89 to 31.94±2.17), practice score (32.64±4.68 to 36.91±2.32) perceived barriers from 26.62±5.16 to 31.29±3.34, guide for external action (from 17.70±3.99 to 22/89 ±1.67), guide for internal action from (16.59±2.95 to 1.03±18.75), and self-efficacy (from 19.83 ±3.99 to 23.37±1.43) (P <0.05). Conclusion: The educational intervention designed based on the Health Belief Model in women was effective in performing preventive behaviors against exposure to second-hand smoke.

Keywords: education, women, exposure to secondhand smoke, health belief model

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Authors: Khitem Amiri, Mohamed Farah

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Image classification is a challenging task and is gaining lots of interest since it helps us to understand the content of images. Recently Deep Learning (DL) based methods gave very interesting results on several benchmarks. For Hyperspectral images (HSI), the application of DL techniques is still challenging due to the scarcity of labeled data and to the curse of dimensionality. Among other approaches, Deep Belief Network (DBN) based approaches gave a fair classification accuracy. In this paper, we address the problem of the curse of dimensionality by reducing the number of bands and replacing the HSI channels by the channels representing radiometric indices. Therefore, instead of using all the HSI bands, we compute the radiometric indices such as NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), NDWI (Normalized Difference Water Index), etc, and we use the combination of these indices as input for the Deep Belief Network (DBN) based classification model. Thus, we keep almost all the pertinent spectral information while reducing considerably the size of the image. In order to test our image representation, we applied our method on several HSI datasets including the Indian pines dataset, Jasper Ridge data and it gave comparable results to the state of the art methods while reducing considerably the time of training and testing.

Keywords: hyperspectral images, deep belief network, radiometric indices, image classification

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Authors: H. Hruschka

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This paper presents the first comparison of the performance of the restricted Boltzmann machine and the deep belief net on binary market basket data relative to binary factor analysis and the two best-known topic models, namely Dirichlet allocation and the correlated topic model. This comparison shows that the restricted Boltzmann machine and the deep belief net are superior to both binary factor analysis and topic models. Managerial implications that differ between the investigated models are treated as well. The restricted Boltzmann machine is defined as joint Boltzmann distribution of hidden variables and observed variables (purchases). It comprises one layer of observed variables and one layer of hidden variables. Note that variables of the same layer are not connected. The comparison also includes deep belief nets with three layers. The first layer is a restricted Boltzmann machine based on category purchases. Hidden variables of the first layer are used as input variables by the second-layer restricted Boltzmann machine which then generates second-layer hidden variables. Finally, in the third layer hidden variables are related to purchases. A public data set is analyzed which contains one month of real-world point-of-sale transactions in a typical local grocery outlet. It consists of 9,835 market baskets referring to 169 product categories. This data set is randomly split into two halves. One half is used for estimation, the other serves as holdout data. Each model is evaluated by the log likelihood for the holdout data. Performance of the topic models is disappointing as the holdout log likelihood of the correlated topic model – which is better than Dirichlet allocation - is lower by more than 25,000 compared to the best binary factor analysis model. On the other hand, binary factor analysis on its own is clearly surpassed by both the restricted Boltzmann machine and the deep belief net whose holdout log likelihoods are higher by more than 23,000. Overall, the deep belief net performs best. We also interpret hidden variables discovered by binary factor analysis, the restricted Boltzmann machine and the deep belief net. Hidden variables characterized by the product categories to which they are related differ strongly between these three models. To derive managerial implications we assess the effect of promoting each category on total basket size, i.e., the number of purchased product categories, due to each category's interdependence with all the other categories. The investigated models lead to very different implications as they disagree about which categories are associated with higher basket size increases due to a promotion. Of course, recommendations based on better performing models should be preferred. The impressive performance advantages of the restricted Boltzmann machine and the deep belief net suggest continuing research by appropriate extensions. To include predictors, especially marketing variables such as price, seems to be an obvious next step. It might also be feasible to take a more detailed perspective by considering purchases of brands instead of purchases of product categories.

Keywords: binary factor analysis, deep belief net, market basket analysis, restricted Boltzmann machine, topic models

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Authors: Zwelenkani Mdlalose

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From the moment Covid 19 was declared a pandemic it became clear that conspiracy theories would significantly impact our response to the crisis that the virus was to become. Central to the interest in conspiracy theories evoked by a pandemic is a more general concern for the impact they have on society and social harmony. The specific brand of Conspiracy Theory that is in question is not any and all theories about conspiracies but rather those conspiracy theories which contradict official accounts. For example, where the official account on the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 is of a conspiracy involving 19 militants associated with the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda against targets in the United States, the nature of conspiracy theory under study is the one contradicting this official account to the extent that its attributes the attacks not to al-Qaeda militants but to actors in the United States government itself. The study is not an investigation into the truth value of conspiracy theories but rather an attempt at observing the essential qualities of the type of belief that is belief in conspiracy theories compared to belief in official accounts provided by authoritative sources such as governments, experts and mainstream media. These qualities include the psychological, epistemic and socio-political foundations on which belief in conspiracy theories are established. Based on a foundational understanding of the sort of belief that are beliefs in conspiracy theories, we may then extrapolate implied ethical demands on both authoritative bodies and actors as well as believers in conspiracy theories. For example: in their unofficial ‘non-factual’ status, is there not some violation of epistemic right in the same way we observe in cases where people are prejudiced because of their religious beliefs? In other words, is there an epistemic injustice suffered by believers in conspiracy theories in the way their beliefs are rejected as illegitimate? Conversely, to what extent do believers bear an epistemic responsibility in their adoption of their beliefs in conspiracy theories. From this position, perhaps we can then develop responses to the problem that foster greater social harmony even in the midst of suspicion and distrust.

Keywords: conspiracy theories, subjugated knowledge, epistemic injustice, epistemic responsibility

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Authors: Krishna Kistan Govender, Alex Masianoga

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The aim of this explanatory study was to critically understand how ethical leadership impacts employee creative behaviour, as well as the creative behaviour dimensions, in a South African transport and logistics SOE. A quantitative study was conducted using a pre-developed questionnaire, and data for 160 middle and executive managers was analysed through structural equation modelling and multiple regression techniques conducted with the Smart PLS statistical software. All five hypothesized relationships were supported, and it was confirmed that ethical leadership has a significant positive influence on employee creative behaviour, as well as on each of the creative behaviour dimensions, namely: idea exploration, idea generation, idea championing, and idea implementation.

Keywords: ethical leaders, employee creative behaviour, state-owned enterprises, South Africa

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Authors: Babak Nemat

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Background and Purpose: Non-alcoholic fatty liver is one of the most common liver disorders, which, as the most important cause of death from liver disease, has unpleasant consequences and complications. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of an educational intervention based on a health belief model to prevent non-alcoholic fatty liver among women. Materials and Methods: This experimental study was performed among 110 women referring to comprehensive health service centers in Malayer City, west of Iran, in 2023. Using the available sampling method, 110 participants were divided into experimental and control groups. The data collection tool included demographic characteristics and a questionnaire based on the health belief model. In the experimental group, three one-hour training sessions were conducted in the form of pamphlets, lectures, and group discussions. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 21, by correlation tests, paired t-tests, and independent t-tests. Results: The mean age of participants was 38.07±6.28 years, and most of the participants were middle-aged, married, housewives with academic education, middle-income, and overweight. After the educational intervention, the mean scores of the constructs include perceived sensitivity (p=0.01), perceived severity (p=0.01), perceived benefits (p=0.01), guidance for internal (p=0.01), and external action (p=0.01), and perceived self-efficacy (p=0.01) in the experimental group were significantly higher than the control group. The score of perceived barriers in the experimental group decreased after training. The perceived obstacles score in the test group decreased after the training (15.2 ± 3.9 v.s 11.2 ± 3.3, (p<0.01). Conclusion: The findings of the study showed that the design and implementation of educational programs based on the constructs of the health belief model can be effective in preventing women from developing higher levels of non-alcoholic fatty liver.

Keywords: non-alcoholic fatty liver, health belief model, education, women

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Authors: Li Qingjian, Li Ke, He Chun, Huang Yong

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In this paper, the method of combining the Pohl Seidman's deep belief network with the self-organizing neural network is proposed to classify the target. This method is mainly aimed at the high nonlinearity of the hyperspectral image, the high sample dimension and the difficulty in designing the classifier. The main feature of original data is extracted by deep belief network. In the process of extracting features, adding known labels samples to fine tune the network, enriching the main characteristics. Then, the extracted feature vectors are classified into the self-organizing neural network. This method can effectively reduce the dimensions of data in the spectrum dimension in the preservation of large amounts of raw data information, to solve the traditional clustering and the long training time when labeled samples less deep learning algorithm for training problems, improve the classification accuracy and robustness. Through the data simulation, the results show that the proposed network structure can get a higher classification precision in the case of a small number of known label samples.

Keywords: DBN, SOM, pattern classification, hyperspectral, data compression

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Authors: Celestina Omoso Isiramen

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The influence of witchcraft belief on disease causation, cure and public health system in Nigeria cannot be underrated. This paper investigated the nexus between witchcraft phenomenon and health-seeking behaviour of HIV sufferers in Edo state, Nigeria. Survey methodology was adopted and stratified random sampling technique was employed in the selection of 600 sample group spread into 200 HIV sufferers, 200 spiritual healers and 200 bio-medics from the three Senatorial districts of the state. Data were collected through the use of structured questionnaire and in-dept interview and analyzed using simple percentage and frequency. Major findings were: belief in witchcraft significantly influenced the people’s perception of HIV causation and wellness and this impacted adversely on public health-care. Poverty, ignorance and dearth of retroviral drugs enhanced the people’s recourse to spiritual healers. Collaboration between spiritual healing techniques and biomedicine was recommended as panacea for curbing HIV/AIDS related morbidity and mortality. It concluded that socio-economic problems must be addressed while the importance of integrating the values of spiritual healing into biomedicine cannot be overstressed.

Keywords: biomedicine, health care, HIV/AIDS, spirituality, witchcraft

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Authors: Elizabeth Latham

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Aristotle’s definition of substance from Metaphysics is relevant to the Catholic transubstantiation of the Eucharist, the idea that the actual substance of bread and wine is replaced by the substance of the body and blood of Christ. Assuming the physiological nature of the subjects do not change, the Aristotelian view on the nature of substance seems to be incompatible with this belief, since bread and wine have essential qualities different from those of flesh and blood. However, based on a theological view of the essence of the body and blood of Christ as salvation along with the essence of Eucharist, transubstantiation can fit within Aristotle’s brackets. This is one step further than theologians like Aquinas have gone in their similar discussions. Using his work as a method by which to understand the apparently impossible act of transforming food to flesh provides a logical angle on a question of faith.

Keywords: aristotle, catholicism, eucharist, metaphysics transubstantiation

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Authors: Arsalan Ghaderi, Behzad Karami Matin, Abdolrahim Afkhamzadeh, Abouzar Keshavarzi, Parvin Nokhasi

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Background: Lack of individual health as one of the major health problems among the pilgrims can be followed by several complications. The main aim of this study was to determine factors predicting individual health among pilgrims of Kurdistan County; in the west of Iran and health belief model (HBM) was applied as theoretical framework. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 100 pilgrims who referred in the red crescent of Kurdistan County, the west of Iran which was randomly selected for participation in this study. A structured questionnaire was applied for collecting data and data were analyzed by SPSS version 21 using bivariate correlations and linear regression statistical tests. Results: The mean age of respondents was 59.45 years [SD: 11.56], ranged from 50 to 73 years. The HBM predictor variables accounted for 47% of the variation in the outcome measure of the individual health. The best predictors for individual health were perceived severity and cause to action. Conclusion: Based on our result, it seems that designing and implementation of educational programs to increase seriousness about complications of lack of individual health and increasing cause to action among the pilgrims may be useful in order to promote individual health among pilgrims.

Keywords: individual health, pilgrims, Iran, health belief model

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Authors: Karen Armstrong

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This paper considers the importance of acquiring, cultivating, and protecting one’s personal online reputation in a post-truth era. Although the idea of the individual is essential psychological construct, the concept necessarily now includes our online reputation. The idea of this online reputation has expanded to become almost more important than any other factor in terms of our professional, social and psychological development. The discussion will first consider philosophical ideas of the self, followed by an examination of underlying concepts of perception and interpretation in a post-truth world. Then, the idea of the recent shift to a consideration of posted images, through words and photos, in the construction of self, will be discussed. Next, the relation between private personal life and exterior social life, including our reputation in a variety of realms will be addressed. This will include the adoption of specific strategies and behaviors, which facilitate accuracy, currency and necessary modifications with regard to our online reputation. Finally, specific ways in which we can negotiate the fluid dynamic between reputation, and inner and outer selves to optimum effect will conclude the discussion.

Keywords: image, post-truth, privacy, reputation, surveillance

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Authors: Eda Yakit Ak, Ergül Aslan

Abstract:

The study was conducted using the quasi-experimental design to determine the influence of the nursing support program prepared according to the Health Belief Model on reproductive health behaviors of orthopedically disabled women in the physical therapy and rehabilitation clinic at a university hospital between August 2019-October, 2020. The research sample included 50 women (35 in the control group and 15 in the experimental group with orthopedic disability). A 3-week nursing support program was applied to the experimental group of women. To collect the data, Introductory Information Form and Scale for Determining the Protective Attitudes of Married Women towards Reproductive Health (SDPAMW) were applied. The evaluation was made with a follow-up form for four months. In the first evaluation, the total SDPAMW scores were 119.93±20.59 for the experimental group and 122.20±16.71 for the control group. In the final evaluation, the total SDPAMW scores were 144.27±11.95 for the experimental group and 118.00±16.43 for the control group. The difference between the groups regarding the first and final evaluations for the total SDPAMW scores was statistically significant (p<0.01). In the experimental group, between the first and final evaluations regarding the sub-dimensions of SDPAMW, an increase was found in the behavior of seeing the doctor on reproductive health issues, protection from reproductive organ and breast cancer, general health behaviors to protect reproductive health, and protection from genital tract infections (p<0.05). Consequently, the nursing support program based on the Health Belief Model applied to orthopedically disabled women positively affected reproductive health behaviors.

Keywords: orthopedically disabled, woman, reproductive health, nursing support program, health belief model

Procedia PDF Downloads 115

Authors: Randhir Singh Ranta

Abstract:

The attempt to achieve and maintain an optimum state of health has always drilled the human mind and consequently, a number of healing systems have evolved around the world. Communities have contrived procedures to alleviate the wearisome condition arising out of ailments, using their own system, which differ from one community to another. Each culture has evolved a viewpoint regarding the cause of disease and the same is embedded in their belief systems. In India, the elementary proposition of mental health is within the community. From the theoretical perspective, the individual obeying and adhering to the institution of village deity represents the two changeovers i.e. from biological to psychological and from psychological to spiritual. In order to understand the cultural notion of mental health and role of local deities, a study was conducted in North-western Himalaya with a purpose to study the belief system of people in context of institution of village deity and establish a relationship between religiosity and general well-being among the believers. An effort was made to compare the mental health status of people facing psychosomatic disorders with the normal. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used for the purpose. Case studies were made to have an understanding of nature of mental and behavioural disorders and the role of institutions of local deities in managing the same. The results revealed that mountain communities have firm beliefs in local deities. A significant difference was found on the scores of belief and wellbeing, and a positive correlation was found between the belief assessment and general wellbeing.

Keywords: culture notion, mental health, healing system, deities

Procedia PDF Downloads 273

Authors: Arezoo Fallahi

Abstract:

Introduction: Exposure to second-hand smoke is an important global health problem and threatens the health of people, especially children and women. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of education based on the Health Belief Model on preventive behaviors of exposure to secondhand smoke in women. Materials and Methods: This experimental study was performed in 2023in Sanandaj, west of Iran. Seventy-four people were selected by simple random sampling and divided into an intervention group (37 people) and a control group (37 people). Data collection tools included demographic characteristics and a second-hand smoke exposure questionnaire based on the Health Beliefs Model. The training in the intervention group was conducted in three one-hour sessions in the comprehensive health service centers in the form of lectures, pamphlets, and group discussions. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 21 and statistical tests such as correlation, paired t-test, and independent t-test. Results: The intervention and control groups were homogeneous before education. They were similar in terms of mean scores of the Health Belief Model. However, after an educational intervention, some of the scores increased, including the mean perceived sensitivity score (from 17.62±2.86 to 19.75±1.23), perceived severity score (28.40±4.45 to 31.64±2), perceived benefits score (27.27±4.89 to 31.94±2.17), practice score (32.64±4.68 to 36.91±2.32) perceived barriers from 26.62±5.16 to 31.29±3.34, guide for external action (from 17.70±3.99 to 22/89 ±1.67), guide for internal action from (16.59±2.95 to 1.03±18.75), and self-efficacy (from 19.83 ±3.99 to 23.37±1.43) (P <0.05). Conclusion: The educational intervention designed based on the Health Belief Model in women was effective in performing preventive behaviors against exposure to secondhand smoke.

Keywords: women, health behaviour, smoke, belive

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Authors: Hanafizan Hussain

Abstract:

This study shows that several projects will be conducted at the workshop in which using the conceptual model for knowledge sharing approach to create an idea for mobile application. The sharing idea has been done through the collaborative activity in which a group of different field sought to define the mobile application which will lead to new media approach of using social media platform. The collaborative activity will be provided and implemented in the form of one day workshop to determine the approach towards the theme given. The activity later will be continued for four weeks for the participant to prepare for the pitch day workshop. This paper shows the pitch of idea including the interface and prototype for the said products. The collaboration between the members with different field of study shows that social media influenced the knowledge sharing model and its creation or innovations. One of the projects supported a collaborative activity in which a group of young designers sought to define the knowledge sharing model of their ability in creating idea for mobile applications.

Keywords: mobile application, collaborative activity, conceptual knowledge sharing model, social media platform

Procedia PDF Downloads 111