Attitudinal Commitments and the Scope of Rational Requirements

In this paper I propose an account of attitudinal commitments which flow from avowed beliefs and intentions. I distinguish my account from Thomas Scanlon’s account of attitudinal commitments on which our beliefs about normative reasons are the source of these commitments. In my view, attitudinal commitments result from avowal of certain attitudes and are best understood in terms of the attitudinal integrity of agents with respect to those attitudes. Rationality, I argue, is a matter of maintaining coherence among our attitudes in ways sensitive to the attitudinal commitments we undertake. My account of attitudinal commitments makes room for progress on a question which is the ultimate focus of this paper, namely, the question of the scope of rational requirements. Concerning the conditional requirements of rationality, the question of scope arises, i.e., whether these requirements have a wide or narrow scope. Both wide and narrow scope rational requirements have their shortcomings. However, once we accept the correct account of attitudinal commitments, I argue that a theory of rationality can make progress beyond the shortcomings of wide and narrow scope requirements of rationality. I provide the outline of such a theory

Thermodynamics and precipitation kinetics of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3)

The objective of this thesis was to study thermodynamics and precipitation kinetics of lithium carbonate in liquid-liquid and gas-liquid system in a jacketed stirred tank reactor and study the influence of impeller speed, pump flow rate, residence time and ageing for precipitation of lithium carbonate in homogeneous system and gas flow rate, impeller speed, temperature, residence time and ageing for precipitation of lithium carbonate in heterogeneous system as operation variables. Filterability was studied to investigate efficient solid-liquid separation. The result obtained from homogeneous and heterogeneous reactive crystallization were investigated and compared. Solubility study of Li2CO3 in Li2CO3-Li2SO4-H2O ternary system modeled with Pitzer thermodynamic model indicated the effects of other electrolytes on the Li2CO3 solubility behavior. Mixing conditions such as flow patterns and internal stirring speed were theoretically studied to have efficient mixing and avoid flooding of gas. The crystals produced from crystallization in heterogeneous system and homogeneous system were characterized with scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersion x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and X-ray diffraction, particle size distribution. The crystals are mainly Li2CO3 that was identified by using HighScore software. Particles have flower-shape pellets and the size is in the range of 50-100 μm. Overall, the study clearly shows that crystallization using CO2 gas in gas-liquid system and using Na2CO3 in liquid-liquid system can be used as a feasible way to recover lithium carbonate from lithium sulfate solution. It was noted that the high pH was necessary for the absorption of CO2 gas and to get the maximum crystals in heterogeneous reactive crystallization. In addition, the pH was dependent to the temperature which results difficulty in controlling the pH of the solution, product yield percentage, purity and uniform crystal shape. To predict the precipitation kinetics of Li2CO3, homogeneous reactive crystallization was easier because no pH adjustment required, rapid precipitation and more crystals obtained in less time as compared to the heterogeneous reactive crystallization

UNDERSTANDING NARCISSISTS’ KNOWLEDGE HIDING BEHAVIOUR: A MORAL DISENGAGEMENT MECHANISM PERSPECTIVE

Purpose:  Narcissistic people have a strong desire to hold focus only around themselves. Their self-love triggers them to create their monopoly and involve in deviant behavioral outcomes such as knowledge hiding. This study was aimed to examine narcissistic employees’ tendency of knowledge hiding behavior in the presence of underlying mechanisms: moral disengagement as mediator.   Methodology:  The Data were collected from banking sector professionals using a Likert scale questionnaire based on time-lagged (three rounds, one month apart) survey. Data were analyzed via Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using an advanced version of Smart PLS 3.9 and SPSS 21.  Findings:   Results revealed that narcissism has a significant positive relation with knowledge hiding and also established moral disengagement as an underlying mechanism between the positive association of narcissism and knowledge hiding. The results provide important recommendations for managers to handle narcissistic personalities and knowledge hiding issues in the banking sector of Pakistan.   Conclusion:  Despite the limitations, the present study enhanced the current knowledge on narcissistic personality features through the moral disengagement perspective with knowledge hiding and enriching the validation of the social cognitive theory. The study results conclude that the banking sector of Pakistan must consider the narcissistic personality of employees behind their issue of knowledge hiding

Quality and Audit Fees: Evidence from Pakistan

Audit quality has been in the limelight for researchers over the last two to three decades. Researchers have endeavored to find out the factors that impact the quality of audit conducted by the auditors. The recent financial crises and financial scandals have further enhanced the importance of this topic. Although it is an empirically established fact that auditor’s performance is impeded by a number of factors that curb its independence however sudden surge in the emoluments of auditors during the last decades has actuated the researchers to study audit quality in context of compensation fee paid to the auditors. The results of studies differ as some are of the view that audit quality improves with the payment of excess fee while the rest are of the opposite view. Unluckily, Pakistan has been less explored in this regard and not even a single study has addressed the issue of audit quality in Pakistan. This study has attempted to analyze audit quality in context of abnormal or extra fee paid to auditor. Audit conducted without independence of auditor is futile and results in impairment of audit quality. Independence of auditor is usually curbed by extra fee paid to him, and auditor in fear of losing a lucrative fee does not report the misrepresentations of financial statements in his audit report. This study uses discretionary accruals as surrogate of audit quality which are computed by Cross-sectional Modified Jones Model (1995). The results are fortunately good for Pakistan and study has observed that auditors in Pakistan do not compromise on their standards and honesty when paid extra fee. In Pakistan, the quality of audit is not impaired when auditors are paid extra fee and the auditors work with diligence and exert extra effort to improve the audit quality. Therefore, the assertion that audit quality is impaired when high fee is paid to auditors does not hold well in Pakistan. Keywords: Audit fee, Audit Qualit

Perceived Organizational Support, Workplace Loneliness, and Creativity: Mediating Role of Workplace Loneliness, and Moderating Role of Proactive Personality

Purpose: Workplace loneliness is not something we often hear in organizations. Being a pervasive issue and having adverse effects, little attention has been devoted to understanding its relationships. To address the gap, the present study was employed to investigate perceived organization support as antecedent and creativity as a consequence outcome of workplace loneliness among managerial level employees. Proactive personality was used as a moderator to test workplace loneliness relationships with antecedent and outcome for significance. Methodology: The research was conducted by adopting a cross-sectional design, where data was collected in dyads by using two separate questionnaires for manager-subordinate relationships. The sample population (N=348) were individuals in a dyadic relationship working at managerial and subordination levels from the banking, education, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical sectors. By using CFA measurement model was accessed and hierarchical regression analysis was adopted to test the curvilinear relationship between perceived organizational support and workplace loneliness. Hays process macros were used for testing moderating effects. Finding& Conclusion: Results revealed a negative (-) relationship of workplace loneliness with its antecedent and outcome. This study also indicated that high proactive individuals are less likely to exhibit workplace loneliness when support is high. It also indicated that highly proactive individuals in the presence of workplace loneliness represent creative behavior as compared to low proactive individuals.

Bart’s Syndrome Associated Corpus Callosum Agenesis and Choanal Atresia

How to Cite This Article: Saeed M, Haq A, Qadir Kh.Bart’s Syndrome Associated Corpus Callosum Agenesis and Choanal Atresia. Iran J Child Neurol. 2014 Autumn;8(4): 76-79.AbstractObjectiveBart’s syndrome is defined as congenital localized absence of skin, and associated with epidermolysis bullosa. A newborn with Bart’s syndrome is reported because it is a very rare condition, especially when associated with corpus callosum agenesis and concomitant choanal atresia. Clinically it is characterized by raw beefy areas of denuded skin mainly on hands and feet.We report a rare case of a term female newborn born to non-consanguineous parents who presented with congenital absence of skin in, face, trunk and extremities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report presenting a case of Bart’s syndrome associated with corpus callosum agenesis.ReferencesBart BJ, Garlin RJ, Anderson VE, Lynch FW. Congenital localized absence of skin and associated abnormalities resembling epidermolysis bullosa. A new syndrome. Arch Dermatol 1966; 93: 296-304.Bart BJ. Epidermolysis bullosa and congenital localized absence of skin. Arch Dermatol 1970; 101: 78-81.Skoven I, Drzewiecki KT. Congenital localized skin defect and epidermolysis bullosa hereditaria letalis. Acta Derm Venereol 1979; 59: 533-537.Wojnarowska FT, Eady RA, Wells RS. Dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa presenting with congenital localized absence of skin: report of four cases. Br J Dermatol 1983; 108: 477-483.Kanzler MH, Smoller B, Woodley DT. Congenital localized absence of the skin as a manifestation of epidermolysis bullosa. Arch Dermatol 1992; 128:1087-90.Maman E, Maor E, Kachko L, Carmi R. Epidermolysis bullosa, pyloric atresia, aplasia cutis congenita: histopathological delineation of an autosomal recessive disease. Am J Med Genet 1998; 78: 127-133.McCarthy MA, Clarke T, Powell FC. Epidermolysis bullosa and aplasia cutis. Int J Derm 1991; 30: 481-484.Puvabanditsin S, Garrow E, Daeun K. Junctional epidermolysis bullosa associated with congenital localized absence of skin. J AM Acad Dermatol 2001; 44: 330-335.Joensen HD. Epidermolysis bullosa dystrophica dominans in two families in the Faroe Islands. Acta Derm Venereol 1973; 53: 53-60.Skoven I, Drzewiecki KT. Congenital localized skin defect and epidermolysis bullosa hereditaria letalis. Acta Derm Venereol 1979; 59: 533-7.Birnbaum RY, Landau D, Elbedour K, Ofir R, Birk OS, Carmi R. Deletion of the first pair of fibronectin type III repeats of the integrin beta-4 gene is associated with epidermolysis bullosa, pyloric atresia and aplasia cutis congenita in the original Carmi syndrome patients. Am J Med Genet 2008; 146A: 1063-1066.Rajpal A, Mishra R, Hajirnis K, Shah M, Nagpur N. Bart’s syndrome. Indian J Dermatol 2008; 53: 88-90.Zelickson B, Matsumara K, Kist D, Epstein EH, Jr, Bart BJ: Bart’s syndrome. Ultrastructure and genetic linkage. Arch Dermatol 1995;131:663–668.Christinano AM, Bart BJ, Epstein EH Jr, Uitto J: Genetic basis of Bart’s syndrome: A glycine substitution mutation in the type VII collagen gene. Invest Dermatol 1996;106: 1340–1342.

Comparative Study of Early Neonatal Versus Late Circumcision in Terms of Post Operative Complications

Objective: The objective of this study was to compare early neonatal versus late circumcision by plastibell in terms of postoperative complications. Methodology: It was a comparative study conducted at Department of Pediatric Surgery at Shifa International Hospital Islamabad from January 2018 to November 2019. The present study is a prospective analytical review of 482 uncircumcised patients who presented to the Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad. The variables that were observed in this study were age, mode of presentation, and complications. Patients divided into 2 groups. In Group A circumcision was done within the first 3 days of life and in Group B circumcision was done from in conventional manner after one week of life till 3 months of age. Results: Total 482 patients were presented during this study period, out of which 70 belong to Group A and 412 belong to Group B. In Group A, bell retraction was seen in 4 patients (5.71%), infection of glans in the form of flakes of pus was seen in 1 patient (1.42%), delayed fall was seen in 2 patients (2.85%) and meatal ulcer was seen in 1 patient (1.42%). In Group B, bell retraction was seen in 8 patients (1.94%), infection in 4 patients (0.97%) and delayed fall in 4 patients (0.97%). Complications like bleeding, over/under circumcision, smegmal cyst, meatal stenosis and urethrocutaneous fistula were not seen in any group. Conclusion: We conclude that neonatal circumcision done within first 3 days of life or even soon after birth is safe and has no significant difference of complications as compared to patients in whom circumcision is done at a later stage

Assessing the Academic integrity among University Students in Pakistan

The principal objective of this research was to assess the academic integrity among Pakistani university students. Qualitative data were obtained from 3 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with students from different universities. Mixed Methods Research was applied at the individual and group level and data were analyzed with the help of content analysis. The analysis unveiled four key themes including teacher's behavior in the classroom, teacher’s evaluation method in Examinations, the influence of peer pressure, and the popularity of the memorization method among students. Students' level of satisfaction with teachers’ behavior in the classroom and at the time of assessment of examination remained low and they considered it as the main reason behind their low level of academic integrity. Rote learning, inconsistencies in the examination evaluation method, and the effect of peer pressure were also identified as the central reasons behind their academic misconduct behavior. It is concluded that in the coming few years, academic misconduct is going to become a popular culture in Pakistani universities and it is a dire need to stop this behavior. Suggestions to overcome this problem are to trained students as well as teachers. The teacher's professional and moral training can directly effect on the training and moral values of students. This study was conducted in Pakistan, but the findings can be observed and replicated in higher education systems in many developing nations.&nbsp

Grade Inflation and Human Capital Accumulation among Pakistani University Students

The central objective of current study was exploring the level of school acquired human capital. To understand the human capital and grade inflation, 2 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted. To measure school based human capital students were asked to write an essay on a given topic. These essays, FGDs and a brief questionnaire about background constituted the data for this study. This data was analyzed using mixed-methods content analysis. Data analysis generated four important themes related to human capital that are Grade inflation and quality of learning, General Knowledge abilities, Presentation and coherence and Writing skills. It was found that performance of students with CGPA more than group mean perform like those below the group mean. The mean values of group CGPA were also high as 3.46 for Punjab University and 3.77 for Government college University Faisalabad.  The content analysis disclosed that similar mistakes are made by students in both categories. This raised serious reservations on the human capital of the students. This also shows the problem of grade inflation. In order to overcome these problems assessment systems, need reforms where actual capabilities of the students can be measured.&nbsp