Search

Background and Objectives: There is a growing infectious syphilis outbreak in Western Canada. Although blood donors are screened for syphilis risks, some blood donors will still be confirmed test‐positive for syphilis. This study compares the characteristics of confirmed test‐positive syphilis donations in both Western Canada and Eastern Canada, November 2022–August 2023. Materials and Methods: Donors were defined as Western or Eastern Canadian. Blood donations were tested for syphilis using the PK‐TP assay (Beckman Coulter PK7300 Automated Microplate System). Confirmatory Treponema pallidum particle agglutination (TPPA) and rapid plasma reagin (RPR) assays were performed by one of two reference laboratories. An RPR titre ≥1:8 was used as a proxy for possible infectious syphilis. Results: Rates of laboratory‐confirmed syphilis were higher in Western (n = 43, 13.4/100,000 donations) versus Eastern donors (n = 19, 4.7/100,000 donations; Fisher's exact test, two‐sided, p ≤ 0.0001). Most syphilis confirmations were in first‐time donors (Western Canada n = 31/43, 72.1%, Eastern Canada 12/19, 63.2%). Conclusion: Although rates of laboratory‐confirmed syphilis were higher in Western versus Eastern donors, Western donors did not have higher rates of infectious syphilis. Further studies might assess whether donors with laboratory‐confirmed syphilis understood pre‐donation screening questions or were completely unaware of a past infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the rule, the subject of power has the right to apply to the administrative court only in cases specified by the Constitution and laws of Ukraine (Part 4, Article 5 of the Civil Code of Ukraine) and for the purpose of exercising the powers entrusted to them. But in judicial practice, there is a position regarding which the law must necessarily provide certain grounds for appeal to an administrative court for cases brought by a subject of authority to a subject of private law. While in cases of a claim by a subject of authority against a subject of authority, an appeal to the court can also be made on grounds that are not directly provided for by law, but which directly follow from the relevant functions of this subject. In some cases and for the purpose of protecting the public interest, which does not conflict with the law and carries out the tasks and functions specified by the law, the subject of authority, without a direct indication of this in the law, may also file a lawsuit against the subject of private law. The article is devoted to consideration of the grounds for filing a lawsuit by a subject of authority to the administrative court. In accordance with the legislation, the specified entity acts as a plaintiff in administrative cases only in some cases. It is emphasized that in court cases in which the subject of authority acts as a plaintiff to the subject of private law, the court is guided by the principle of proportionality. This precept is a universal general law aimed at ensuring a reasonable balance of private and public interests. In administrative disputes based on a claim by a subject of authority against another subject of authority, the defendant must prove the legality of his decision, action or inaction, including that there is no violation of the rights of other persons, including public interests. Protection against groundless lawsuits by subjects of authority is, first of all, guarantees provided by the procedural law regarding the right to compensation for all costs related to the dispute. Judicial protection by the administrative court is the most effective mechanism for protecting the rights and interests of citizens, other individuals and legal entities in the event of their violation by any entity. Creating a situation in which no subject of authority has the right to apply to an administrative court with a claim in the public interest distorts the nature and task of the administrative court. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expressing loyalty to the Constitution, especially its immutable and key principles, is a public commitment. However, this commitment is more sensitively addressed for individuals who are government officials, depending on their level and position within the governance structure. For this reason, one of the general conditions stated in the regulations governing the employment and entry of individuals into government agencies and sensitive positions, including membership in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, is loyalty to the Constitution and its most fundamental principle, namely the absolute guardianship of the jurist. In this context, Clause 4 of Article 28 of the Election Law of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, enacted in 1999 with subsequent amendments, stipulates that one of the conditions for candidates for representation is "expressing loyalty to the Constitution and the progressive principle of the guardianship of the jurist." The main question of this article is how this condition is established. The answer to this question, derived through a descriptive-analytical method and preliminary examination of the concept of loyalty and the basis of this condition, is that loyalty to the Constitution is among the natural rights of governance and is a commitment of the nation, especially in the capacity of government officials. It is expressed both verbally and practically, and it has degrees that must be established through common knowledge (ordinary knowledge or confident suspicion).

The article presents a description of request for confirmation (RfC) sequences in everyday conversation in Egyptian Arabic. Through a quantitative analysis of 200 sequences excerpted from telephone calls, the analysis is concerned to identify the main design features of RfC sequences and their context-sensitive distribution and use. Analysis reveals that RfCs in Egyptian Arabic often do not bear special syntactic or prosodic marking. Lexical devices, such as inference markers, tag questions, and modulation markers, make explicit the specific epistemic position of the requesters. RfCs mostly attract confirmations. These can be accomplished by minimal responses; however, in most cases, a more elaborate format is used. Greater epistemic independence is suggested in confirmations in which no token is used. Non-minimal responses seem to be normative in the case of disconfirmations. Responders can also employ dedicated means for declining to provide a dis/confirmation. The findings of this study support the view of RfC sequences as a complex site for the display and negotiation of knowledge and social positioning.

Response signals (RS) have emerged as a powerful interaction tool, but they have yet to be fully understood. The current study analyzes 16 h of daily conversations using discourse-pragmatic frameworks to discuss certain aspects of the most prevalent primary and secondary Persian RSs. An RS is identified as a brief interactive response to a prior speaker's statement, typically expressing (dis)confirmation, (un)acceptance, or backchannel (including assessment and continuer feedback). The research also differentiates and compares the functional and distributional differences and similarities between confirmation and backchannel signals. Following that, it takes a semasiological approach and discusses how the emergence, overlap, and markedness of certain functions for an item can be determined by the persistence of its original propositional meaning as well as the item's grammaticalization and cooptation. The paper thus reviews the markedness of the backchannel function for na 'no' compared to this function's development for ɂāre 'yes'. Last but not least, cross-linguistic phonological tendencies, such as the integration of the phoneme /ɂ/ or /h/ in positive RSs and click sounds in negative ones, are supported by Persian RSs and their variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThe conjunction fallacy is the well-documented reasoning error on which people rate a conjunction A∧B as more probable than one of its conjuncts, A. Many explanations appeal to the fact that B has a high probability in the given scenarios, but Katya Tentori and collaborators have challenged such approaches. They report experiments suggesting that degree of confirmation—rather than probability—is the central determinant of the conjunction fallacy. In this paper, we have two goals. First, we address a confound in Tentori et al.’s experiments: they failed to control for the fact that in their stimuli where B is confirmed, it is also conversationally relevant in the sense that it fits with the topic or question under discussion. Conversely, when B has a high probability but is not confirmed, it is conversationally irrelevant. Consequently, it is possible that conversational relevance, rather than confirmation, is responsible for the differences they found between confirmed and probable hypotheses. Second, inspired by recent theoretical work, we aim to give the first empirical investigation of the hypothesis that this type of conversational relevance on its own—independently of degree of confirmation—can be an important factor in the conjunction fallacy. We report on two experiments that vary Tentori et al.’s design by making B relevant without changing its degree of probability or confirmation. We found that doing so increases the rate of the conjunction fallacy, suggesting that relevance plays an important role in the conjunction fallacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on student-to-student communication continues to grow into a robust area of scholarship for instructional communication researchers. The communicative process by which students are made to feel valuable and significant as members of the classroom, student-to-student confirmation comprises three factors (i.e., individual attention, acknowledgment, and assistance) that have been associated with a myriad of positive student outcomes. The following essay reviews work on student-to-student confirmation and offers distinct recommendations for researchers to advance this area of scholarship. These recommendations include exploring the ways that student-to-student confirmation relates to emerging constructs of interest in the instructional communication literature (i.e., persistence and student mental health), as well as considering contextual factors of confirmation, and the potential impact of not just receiving but also providing confirmation. Finally, this review ends with reflections on the limitations of this work and the way in which theory can be used to extend and further understand its influence in the teaching–learning process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two main concerns regarding the hadiths, seen as one of the fundamental source of Islam along with the Holy Quran: Confirmation (subût) and indication (delâlet). While the problem of the confirmation focuses on determining whether the hadiths belong to the Prophet Muhammad, the indication, in this sense, deal with the problems regarding the comprehension of evidence. A holistic approach is extremely very important in understanding the hadith texts correctly. This approach is based on two basic elements. The first is to evaluate all aspects of the narration together, and the second is to collect information about the narrations, called non-textual context. This article aims to introduce the work called "Background Information in the Understanding of Hadiths", which concretely demonstrates that to acknowledge the non-textual context is a prerequisite for correct interpretation in comprehending the hadiths, in throught the narration reported in Sahih al-Bukhari at which the meeting of Abu Sufyan and Heraclius is described, is used as an example. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It has frequently been argued recently that Jeffrey Conditionalization (JC) does not permit undermining. For JC to be inapplicable in cases where the evidence could be undermined would severely compromise JC's range. However, this paper contends that the argument fails to show that JC cannot accommodate undermining. This response turns on using the proper partition to capture the direct impact of our evidence in redistributing our credences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research in the field of entrepreneurship has become an intriguing area for further investigation. In an era where digital advancements are ubiquitous, previous researchers have identified a gap: the lack of a specific instrument to identify digital entrepreneur skills. Therefore, this study aims to determine the constructs of students’ digital entrepreneur skills. The analysis techniques include confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), exploratory factor analysis (EFA), Pearson correlation, Kendall’s, Spearman’s, and Cronbach’s alpha. The study was conducted over five phases with 235 participants from university students in Indonesia who run or own a business. The results revealed strong instrument validity with robustness ranging from significant Pearson, Kendall’s, and Spearman’s analyses (0.60). The exploratory factor analysis indicated a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value of 0.954 (>0.05) and Bartlett’s test (0.000 < 0.05), with all items having values of anti-image (>0.50), communalities (> 0.50), and factor loadings (> 0.40), uncovering three components. Lastly, the CFA demonstrated an overall good fit model, with high first-order factor loadings (>0.60) and a second-order construct digital entrepreneur skills comprising three components: interpersonal digital skills with a factor loading of 0.890, idea and technology management skills (0.920), and adaptation and innovation skills (1.020). The study highlights the critical need for students to develop digital entrepreneurial skills encompassing interpersonal digital skills, ideation, and technology management, as well as adaptation and innovation abilities to thrive in the digital economy and enhance their personal and professional growth. AcknowledgmentI want to thank all those who have helped make this research a success, especially for Sebelas Maret University as a place of affiliation and all respondents willing to participate in my study.

Confirmation, one of the seven sacraments in Lombard's schedule, was retained by the English Reformers, but not as a sacrament and without any distinctive quasi-sacramental grace attributed to it. It became a ceremony to complete the catechizing process for children who, having been baptized as infants, were at the age of discretion now to come to holy communion. The reformers thought that a post-baptismal laying on of hands had been practised from apostolic times, and so commended the ceremony for their church practice. This requirement enabled later generations, such as Gregory Dix, to bid up its significance, teaching that confirmation completes baptism, and thus that water-baptism is of itself incomplete. The underlying premise has been that from the apostles onwards a requisite second initiatory ceremony invariably followed baptism. Both Bible and early church history contradict this thesis, not least the eight post-apostolic authors of the first two centuries who mention baptism. All eight testify to the use of water without any further ceremony. Thus, any insistence upon a two-stage sacramental initiation today lacks historical foundations; Anglicans ought to review residual texts and practices which reflect such a pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lord's Supper is viewed as a miracle meal by African Pentecostals. However, it is suggested that a miracle notion only partly conveys the meaning embedded in the Lord's Supper. The study adds that the Lord's Supper is a symbolic ritual that involves spiritual and mystical participation in God's economy by grace through faith in Jesus Christ in the Spirit. Admission to the Lord's Supper should be based on faith in Jesus Christ and a preparation process that includes instruction, baptism, confirmation, and regular penitential prayer such as the 'speaking'. The essay argues that infants can partake in the Lord's Supper based on the faith of their parents or guardians, while children of responsible age can participate if they go through the confirmation rite. The discussion covers church governance principles and suggests that limiting the covenantal rights of offending members is just insofar as the church remains an ethical institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Social Sciences Studies is the property of Social Sciences Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Work with confirmands and the concept of confirmation have undergone a number of changes in recent decades. This study explores the changes that have taken place in the largest Protestant church in Czechia, the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. With the help of empirical research, it attempts to trace general trends and confronts them with the proposal of a new confirmation liturgy of the ECCB (2023), current theories of confirmation, and the results of European research on confirmation. It concludes by showing the difficulties inherent in trying to reduce confirmation to one core meaning, and recommends that a balance is sought between the subjective and objective as well as theological and anthropological dimensions. Confirmation is both an opportunity to accompany adolescents with intercession and blessing on the journey of faith that began with baptism, and a space where they can respond to it and assume their own religious responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pragmatism gained considerable attention in bioethical discussions in the early 21st century. However, some dimensions and contributions of pragmatism to bioethics remain underexplored in both research and practice. It is argued that pragmatism can make a distinctive contribution to bioethics through its concept, developed by Charles S. Peirce and John Dewey, that ethical issues can be resolved through experimental inquiry. Dewey's proposal that policies can be confirmed or disconfirmed through experimentation is developed by comparing it to the confirmation of scientific hypotheses, with a focus on the objection that the consequences of following a moral view or policy do not provide guidance on choosing among competing ethical perspectives. As confirmation of scientific hypotheses typically relies on evidence gathered from observation, the possibility of ethically relevant observation is then explored based on Peirce's views on feelings as emotional interpretants. Finally, the connection between Dewey's experimental ethics and democracy is outlined and compared to unfettered ethical progressivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Predictivism is the thesis that evidence successfully predicted by a scientific theory counts more (or ought to count more) in the confirmation of that theory than already known evidence would. One rationale that has been proposed for predictivism is that predictive success guards against ad hoc hypotheses. Despite the intuitive attraction of predictivism, there is historical evidence that speaks against it. As valuable as the historical evidence may be, however, it is largely indirect evidence for the epistemic attitudes of individual – albeit prominent – scientists. This paper presents the results of an empirical study of scientists' attitudes toward predictivism and ad hoc-ness (n = 492), which will put the debate on a more robust empirical footing. The paper also draws attention to a tension between the ad hoc-ness avoidance rationale of predictivism and the ways philosophers have spelled out the notion of ad hoc-ness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The stopping rule for a sequential experiment is the rule or procedure for determining when that experiment should end. Accordingly, the stopping rule principle (SRP) states that the evidential relationship between the final data from a sequential experiment and a hypothesis under consideration does not depend on the stopping rule: the same data should yield the same evidence, regardless of which stopping rule was used. I clarify and provide a novel defense of two interpretations of the main argument against the SRP, the foregone conclusion argument. According to the first, the SRP allows for highly confirmationally unreliable experiments, which concept I make precise, to confirm highly. According to the second, it entails the evidential equivalence of experiments differing significantly in their confirmational reliability. I rebut several attempts to deflate or deflect the foregone conclusion argument, drawing connections with replication in science and the likelihood principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on Nozick's invariantism about objectivity, I propose to define scientific objectivity in terms of counterfactual independence. I will argue that such a counterfactual independence account is (a) able to overcome the decisive shortcomings of Nozick's original invariantism and (b) applicable to three paradigmatic kinds of scientific objectivity (that is, objectivity as replication, objectivity as robustness, and objectivity as Mertonian universalism). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In The Gay Science §341, the thought of eternal return is introduced as the announcement of a "demon." Two possible hearers are described: one is crushed by the demon's speech, while the other is overjoyed. This article argues that these responses are different because they are responses to different messages. One is conveyed in plain words by the demon's speech; the other is implied by a final reference to "this ultimate eternal confirmation and sealing." While that confirmation is provided by what the demon says, not everyone will be aware of it: rather, only someone for whom the value of life has become problematic will be aware of it. Further, it seems that the demon does not understand his own message, since he personifies a will to knowledge that is indifferent to such concerns. Thus, only a human being can gain insight into the value and meaning of life from the thought of eternal return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an influential paper, Wendy Parker argues that agreement across climate models isn’t a reliable marker of confirmation in the context of cutting-edge climate science. In this paper, I argue that while Parker’s conclusion is generally correct, there is an important class of exceptions. Broadly speaking, agreement is not a reliable marker of confirmation when the hypotheses under consideration are mutually consistent—when, e.g., we’re concerned with overlapping ranges. Since many cutting-edge questions in climate modeling require making distinctions between mutually consistent hypotheses, agreement across models will be generally unreliable in this domain. In cases where we are only concerned with mutually exclusive hypotheses, by contrast, agreement across climate models is plausibly a reliable marker of confirmation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews the formation and features of the paraliturgical model of children’s catechesis, formed under the influence of Montessory pedagogy, in the general context of the development of catechetical training of children in Western Christianity. Particular attention is paid to the gaining new professional levels of the activities of catechists in the 20th century, and the most significant trends in the development of catechetical activities are shown. In the first half of the century problems solved were mainly methodological ones, while in the second half of the century educational practice developed under the influence of existential theology. In its most consistent form, the paraliturgical model is reflected in two Christian education programs: Catholic program “Catechism of the Good Shepherd” by Sofia Cavalletti and Protestant program “Godly Play” by Jerome Berryman, which have greatly influenced modern educational practice. The article provides both a general description of the paraliturgical model and the features of the mentioned systems. The author makes assumptions about reasons for the popularity of the methods, characterizes their influence on Christian pedagogical practice, and also points out a number of problems arising in connection with their spreading. The practice shows the effectiveness of this approach to Christian education and its rich pedagogical potential. However, it requires both evidence-based pedagogical research on the application of the Montessori approach to Christian education, as well as solving issues related to the content of education and its cultural adaptation.

Listeriosis remains one of the most severe foodborne diseases in terms of fatality rate. Listeria monocytogenes can grow under stressful conditions and contaminate various food categories. Regulation (EC) No 2073/2005 modified on microbiological criteria for foodstuffs includes both qualitative and quantitative food safety criteria on L. monocytogenes and mentions EN ISO 11290–1 Standard as the reference detection method for the qualitative criteria. This European regulation also allow the use of alternative validated methods in the frame of own checks. Here, we report current practices in Europe on the use of alternative methods for the detection of L. monocytogenes in the frame of official controls, further to an enquiry conducted in 2022 by the European Union Reference Laboratory for L. monocytogenes. Current practices in Europe reflect the successive development of complementary technologies in the field of food safety analysis aiming at improving the accuracy, speed and automation of detection methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to argue for a revised and precisified version of the infamous Verifiability Criterion for the meaningfulness of declarative sentences. The argument is based on independently plausible premises concerning probabilistic confirmation and meaning as context-change potential, it is shown to be logically valid, and its ramifications for potential applications of the criterion are being discussed. Although the paper is not historical but systematic, the criterion thus vindicated will resemble the original one(s) in some important ways. At the same time, it will also be more modest insofar as meaningfulness will turn out to be relativized linguistically and probabilistically, and different choices of the linguistic and probabilistic parameters may lead to different verdicts on meaningfulness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we compare practices of formulating responses to requests for confirmation oriented toward confirmation but doing less or more than that in German and Yurakaré (isolate, Bolivia). The German particle joa is identified as a versatile resource for navigating the functional spectrum of such responses, being deployed for less than confirming in terms of epistemic or propositional downgrading, and for more than confirming in terms of addressing terms of questions or a confirmable's valence. When exercising these specific tasks, speakers of Yurakaré, in contrast, rely mostly on repetitional strategies, while a highly specialised particle constitutes an 'escape strategy' when a repeat would convey unwanted implications. We propose that doing less and more than confirming is contingent on a more fundamental distinction: a preference for particles (German) vs. repeats (Yurakaré) in the realm of plain confirmation, which carries over to responses doing less and more than confirming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a study of Arabic waḷḷāhi (lit. 'by God') and English really when they are used interactionally as newsmarks. The literature has claimed that the role of newsmarks in conversation is to treat prior talk as news, to open up a slot for further talk, to express doubt or disbelief, and to implement requests for confirmation. A close analysis of waḷḷāhi and really shows that they do not necessarily follow the patterns described by previous research. Instead, the data suggest that newsmarks primarily contribute to the construction of prior talk as remarkable, that is, tellable and noteworthy; and that some previously described functions are epiphenomenal of this more basic property. The data are recordings of naturally occurring everyday conversations in British English and Egyptian Arabic, with English translations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some authors claim that minimal models have limited epistemic value (Fumagalli, 2016; Grüne-Yanoff, 2009a). Others defend the epistemic benefits of modelling by invoking the role of robustness analysis for hypothesis confirmation (see, e.g., Levins, 1966; Kuorikoski et al., 2010) but such arguments find much resistance (see, e.g., Odenbaugh & Alexandrova, 2011). In this paper, we offer a Bayesian rationalization and defence of the view that robustness analysis can play a confirmatory role, and thereby shed light on the potential of minimal models for hypothesis confirmation. We illustrate our argument by reference to a case study from macroeconomics. At the same time, we also show that there are cases in which robustness analysis is detrimental to confirmation. We characterize these cases and link them to recent investigations on evidential variety (Landes, 2020b, 2021; Osimani and Landes, forthcoming). We conclude that robustness analysis over minimal models can confirm, but its confirmatory value depends on concrete circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several philosophers have noted that metaphysical naturalism has been an assumption shared by the members of the scientific community involved in the research concerning the origin of life. It is a consequence of this presupposition that the emergence of life should have been very probable under the physical and chemical conditions in the primitive Earth. The state of the research on the origin of life, though, is very far from having a convincing naturalist hypothesis in the terms sought after. The attitude of the researchers and some philosophers has been to suppose that these failures are not reason to think that some other naturalist hypothesis won't work. Here, an epistemological reconstruction of this attitude in Bayesian terms is offered. It is argued that the insulation of metaphysical naturalism from disconfirmation is not rational, and would become an obstacle to the advancement of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kocatepe Veterinary Journal / Kocatepe Veteriner Dergisi is the property of Afyon Kocatepe University, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We provide a philosophical reconstruction and analysis of the debate on the scientific status of cosmic inflation that has played out in recent years. In a series of critical papers, Ijjas, Steinhardt, and Loeb have questioned the scientificality of current views on cosmic inflation. Proponents of cosmic inflation, such as Guth and Linde, have in turn defended the scientific credentials of their approach. We argue that, while this defense, narrowly construed, is successful against Ijjas, Steinhardt, and Loeb, the latters' reasoning does point to a significant epistemic issue that arises with respect to inflationary theory. We claim that a broadening of the concept of theory assessment to include meta-empirical considerations is needed to address that issue in an adequate way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From current cognitive science, some theories propose that the human mind includes two systems: a system leading quick intuitions and a system ruling slow logical reasoning. Given that the systems are in the mind, one might think that their existence is difficult to check. This paper presents a way to gradually confirm the hypothesis about the two systems. It adopts the conception of the two systems as presented by the theory of mental models. Moreover, following Carnap’s proposal of reduction, the paper describes two procedures to incrementally confirm the hypothesis. One of them investigates human performance at inferences in the form of Modus Tollendo Tollens. The other one investigates inferences from an exclusive disjunction having three disjuncts.

This study reports how ethics of care principles were foregrounded in a first-year English module offered at an open distance e-learning (ODeL) university in South Africa to enhance online student engagement. Current research indicates that online student engagement predicts student success; however, there is a paucity of how ethics of care principles can be foregrounded in online student interaction to enhance student participation. The researcher used an action research approach to explore the students' and lecturers' interactions in this module. Their interactions on the discussion forum over four semesters were carefully analysed to establish whether ethics of care principles were displayed. Interviews were also conducted with the lecturers concerned to determine their views on care ethics. Data was also collected through pre- and post-student evaluations of the module, and evaluations of the virtual class conducted during the semester. The key findings indicated that the students understood care as collaboration and respect in online interactions. Despite the lecturers displaying little or no awareness of the principles, their comments resonated with some care principles. Future research should focus on how the ethics of care principles can be integrated into online interaction while teaching an online English module. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The northern spruce bark beetle, Ips duplicatus (Sahlberg), has invaded Central Europe in the past century and continues to spread southwards and westwards. It has caused damage in some parts of Europe in recent decades and poses a serious threat to spruce forests across the continent. From 2018 to 2021, we conducted intensive monitoring to determine the status of I. duplicatus in Slovenia. We used different types of traps and pheromone lures that attract I. duplicatus beetles and took bark samples from bark beetle-infested trees. Of the 26 traps used during the four years of monitoring, I. duplicatus was found in 16 traps in the central part of Slovenia in 2020. Adult beetles were caught in traps containing both I. typographus and I. duplicatus lures. The identity of this species was confirmed using morphological keys and molecular methods. One to five I. duplicatus beetles were found per trap, totaling 25 specimens. However, we did not confirm any I. duplicatus in samples taken from trees in 2021. We conclude that I. duplicatus is present in Slovenia, but our results suggest that the species is only present locally and that the population is small. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports how ethics of care principles were foregrounded in a first-year English module offered at an open distance e-learning (ODeL) university in South Africa to enhance online student engagement. Current research indicates that online student engagement predicts student success; however, there is a paucity of how ethics of care principles can be foregrounded in online student interaction to enhance student participation. The researcher used an action research approach to explore the students’ and lecturers’ interactions in this module. Their interactions on the discussion forum over four semesters were carefully analysed to establish whether ethics of care principles were displayed. Interviews were also conducted with the lecturers concerned to determine their views on care ethics. Data was also collected through pre- and post-student evaluations of the module, and evaluations of the virtual class conducted during the semester. The key findings indicated that the students understood care as collaboration and respect in online interactions. Despite the lecturers displaying little or no awareness of the principles, their comments resonated with some care principles. Future research should focus on how the ethics of care principles can be integrated into online interaction while teaching an online English module.

Purpose: The retail banking market has witnessed substantial changes over the years due to new technological advancements, increased regulations, and the rise of digital channels. Meeting customer expectations stands out as a key challenge for sustainable growth of the industry. This examines the impact of service quality, customer knowledge management, and confirmation on customer satisfaction within the domestic retail banking sector. Furthermore, it seeks to explore the association between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in retail banking. Design/Methodology/Approach: Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to retail banking customers in the Klang Valley using convenience and purposive sampling techniques. A total of 268 samples were obtained for data analysis with the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) and Necessary Condition Analysis (NCA). Findings: The study’s results validated the strong connection between service quality, customer knowledge management, and confirmation with customer satisfaction in Malaysian retail banks. Additionally, customer satisfaction has significant impact on customer loyalty. The NCA outcomes further substantiate these findings, highlighting the significant role of customer knowledge management, service quality, and confirmation as significant factors affecting customer satisfaction in Malaysian retail banks. Implications/Originality/Value: This study offers valuable insights for academia to better understand this area as well as allows sector stakeholders to improve and sharpen their competitive edge in the market.

A 23-year-old woman, G0, presented to the emergency department with painful bruising of the legs shortly after starting an oral contraceptive pill. The presumed diagnosis was pill-induced ecchymosis, and she was instructed to discontinue the medication. Her bruising resolved. However, the working diagnosis was later questioned as the patient had used other oral contraceptive pills in the past without any adverse reaction. In addition, there is robust literature associating these medications with thrombosis, not bruising.The patient later disclosed that she had concomitantly started an oral hair supplement along with her oral contraceptive pill. Analysis of the supplement contents revealed that it contained extract of Aesculus hippocastanum, a herbal anticoagulant, making this a much more plausible explanation for the ecchymosis. She then resumed the original oral contraceptive pill alone without any reaction.The case highlights how cognitive bias resulted in a misdiagnosis. Specifically, this case introduces the concept of pill bias, as the patient's unexplained bruising was presumed to be a result of her use of an oral contraceptive despite the lack of evidence to support this claim. This bias has the potential to impact clinical decision-making and lead to clinical errors.

Benzodiazepines are one of the most prescribed for therapeutic purposes and the most abused drugs. Therefore, liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry–based methods that analyze several benzodiazepines simultaneously are required. In this study, we developed a simple, full validated in‐house method in a single‐triple quadrupole platform SCIEX QTRAP 4500 system for the simultaneous detection and quantification of the 10 most prescribed benzodiazepines within a 10‐min run time. The linear range was 12.5–500 ng/mL. All limits of detection were below 4.03 ng/mL and limits of quantitation below 12.22 ng/mL, except clobazam (7.27 and 22.04 ng/mL, respectively). Both the limit of detection and quantitation were lowest for diazepam (0.95 and 2.89 ng/mL, respectively). The method was evaluated for accuracy, precision, carry‐over, recovery, stability, and matrix effects, and all validation studies met internationally acceptable criteria. The applicability of the method was proven by analyzing authentic urine samples, internal, and third‐party external quality samples. This precise, accurate, shorter total run time and ease of urine sample analysis method is applicable in detecting most prescribed benzodiazepines and their metabolites even in glucuronide forms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]