political and social isolation of women in pre-islamic period and their blurred role in social and political life was changed with the advent of islam. however, in the era of the caliphs, under the influence of jewish and christian cultural elements and the revival of certain pre-islamic arabian traditions, the page was turned and the situation is well reflected in historical texts and traditio...

Narrative in Ethics We hear stories and tell stories every day we practice medicine, without appreciating that the resolutions we seek in ethical dilemmas often unfold from the stories of our patients, their families, and our colleagues. A story holds so much life; knowledge in context leads to better understanding. Yet, misguided, we search for detail in chemical blood levels, shadows in a rad...

Using the example of a failed software implementation, we discuss the role of artifacts in shaping organizational routines. We argue that artifact-centered assumptions about design are not well suited to designing organizational routines, which are generative systems that produce recognizable, repetitive patterns of interdependent actions, carried out by multiple actors. Artifact-centered assum...

BACKGROUND Sharing interim data, results or result extrapolations is an important issue that can affect trial integrity. The different ways in which Data Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMBs) share interim results with non-DSMB members and the acceptability of such practices are poorly understood. Our objective was to undertake a narrative review specifically on what kind of interim results, if any,...

Reptile prime ministers and flying Nazi saucers-extreme and sometimes off-wall conclusion are typical ingredients of conspiracy theories. While individual differences are a common research topic concerning conspiracy theories, the role of extreme statements in the process of acquiring and passing on conspiratorial stories has not been regarded in an experimental design so far. We identified six...

Accumulating evidence suggests that amnesic patients have difficulty imagining the future in addition to having deficits remembering the past (see Verfaellie et al., 2012). In a recent article in this journal, Zeman et al. (in press) reported that amnesics are also impaired at describing the present: A group of amnesics with mixed etiologies and variable neurocognitive profiles produced fewer n...

Introduction In recent years developments in digital technology have played a signii-cant role in the transformation of narrative theory and practice. Stories that exploit the capacity of digital media (that is, those that necessitate the computer for their production and display) have provided vital new territory against which the tools of narrative analysis could be tested and reened. As such...

A study on how role-play through narrative elements of social communication can be implemented in a computer-based environment. Contemporary computer role-playing games do not support playing roles in a social aspect. Play is conducted in a functional and task-oriented way due to the design of the gameplay. An experimental role-playing game, Castle of Oulu, 1651 was constructed to test aspects ...

Digital forensics is traditionally approached either as a computer science problem or as an investigative problem. In both cases, the goal is usually the same: attempt to locate discrete pieces of information that are probative. In the computer science approach, characteristics of the data are utilized to include or exclude objects, data or metadata. The investigative approach reviews the conte...