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The purpose of this paper is to draw a map of the general features of epistemological and critical concerns in contemporary Islamic philosophy. This study will not be confined to the domain of academic philosophy or to those who are professionals in the field of philosophy.

The paper adopted the critical rational approach in dealing with contemporary Islamic philosophy in the Arab world. The scope will include scholars from different fields of epistemology who tried to present a “vision” of the attitude that should be adopted in facing the challenges of the age and the problems of the nation on the epistemological level or the political, economic and social levels.

There is a need for a philosophy of action and progress rather than a philosophy that is based on abstract ideas and theories and of words/rhetoric. The ethics required to accomplish this ought to identify the attributes of the citizen who can reach self-actualization through legitimate means based on a progress agenda with theoretical and philosophical foundations.

Because a critical rational approach can be dealt with from different perspectives, this paper will adopt the classification of the principal intellectual trends: the reformist, secular and liberal.

This paper covers a long time span to determine whether the philosophical projects have been effective.

This paper, which criticizes the philosophic projects that are theoretically unsound and that do not address real social problems (like poverty), argues the need for a philosophy of progress and action. This will lead to devising an agenda that addresses the challenges the society is facing and to finding alternative and creative solutions resulting in development.

This chapter considers adolescents' migration aspirations in Kyrgyzstan. The discussion is based on the data obtained from 14 semi-structured interviews with adolescents as part of a qualitative study devoted to changes and continuities in biographic projecting across three generations. The study reveals the tendency towards having aspirations to move abroad for studies, work and/or life. Thus, the objective of this chapter is to consider the adolescents' motivation and to trace opportunities and challenges which may promote or hinder the realisation of individuals' migration projects. Special attention is paid to the role of an adolescent's family in this process. Adolescents' aspirations oriented towards future life in foreign countries are analysed with the help of two theoretical concepts – the concept of intergenerational solidarity and the concept of individualisation.

The analysis has shown that in Kyrgyzstan, adolescents' plans concerning going abroad are often framed by their extended families' interests and expectations. Adolescents' migration aspirations become a collective project of every family member for the sake of the family's future well-being. Parental expectation of care and support in their older age is one of the main limitations on adolescents' aspirations to move abroad. Those adolescents whose migration aspirations do not correspond with parental expectations may experience strong ambivalence, when they face the conflict between their individualised biographic projects oriented towards promising global opportunities and intergenerational solidarity norms.

This study aims to examine whether national industry expertise in Italy is more dominant than local expertise. Prior studies from Australia, USA and UK show that audit fees for industry experts are priced at a higher premium at the local level than the national level. These countries have voluntary audit firm rotation, while Italy has mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR). The authors predict that Italy has a stronger national than local level of industry expertise, to better retain and transfer industry expertise.

The authors compare audit fee premiums of national industry experts to local levels, using quantitative (multivariate tests) and qualitative (interviews) methodology.

Using hand-collected audit fees, the authors find that the audit fee premium for industry expertise is greater at the national level than the local level. The authors find corroborating results with audit hours. To provide further support, the authors conduct analysis for a neighboring country that does not have audit firm rotation. Using hand-collected data from Germany, the authors find that audit fee premiums from national industry expertise are no different from local industry expertise.

The present study study has theoretical and practical implications, for European Union countries, which recently adopted MAFR and for countries considering adoption in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the indicators of service quality from the perspective of graduating students in a public university in Ghana. The identified indicators of service quality were rated and the extent of satisfaction among the students was determined. Another issue explored was whether the satisfaction among the respondents inures to their loyalty to the university.

A questionnaire was designed, pre-tested and administered to 500 graduating students, and 482 of them were returned for analyses. Principal component analysis was used to determine the indicators of service quality. Independent sample t-test and z-test for proportions were used to compare mean scores and proportions of respondents on various variables, respectively.

The results revealed three indicators of service quality which include quality of academic services and facilities, quality of lecturers and quality of academic programs. Graduands were satisfied with academic services, lecturers and programs. They were, however, not satisfied with the quality of facilities. Majority of the respondents will remain associated with the university as a result of their satisfaction with the services, lecturers as well as programs of the university. It is recommended that the university works assiduously on improving infrastructural facilities to help boost the confidence of the students in the university.

This paper argues that what constitutes quality service vary from one academic institution to the other. It is, therefore, needful for institutions to determine from the perspective of their students what may indicate quality service.

It has been argued that a mono product economy experiences epileptic growth because it is prone to global dynamics such as epidemic. Therefore, the need to diversify investments cannot be over-emphasized. Hence, the study examined port operation's efficiency and revenue generation in global maritime trade: implications for national growth and development in Nigeria. The objectives of the study are to identify the factors that improve efficiency in port operations, and to ascertain how efficiency of operations will affect revenue generation and national growth.

The study employed correlation and multiple regressions analyses to test the hypothesis which states that port operation's efficiency does not have positive and significant effect on revenue generation in Nigeria. A cross sectional research design and structured questionnaires were deployed in the study and simple random sampling technique was used to select the sample size of 200 respondents.

Results revealed that efficient port operations affect revenue generation and national development.

Port operations in Nigeria are bedeviled with daunting challenges that hamper smooth and efficient working port's system.

The study suggested that modern port's technologies (ICTs) be deployed to enhance operations in the ports and manpower should be trained on regular intervals to understand modern logistics management techniques in the ports. Third, government should provide port infrastructures being the backbone of efficient port system. Lastly, the private sector should be partnered with in several areas including port's concession to facilitate effective and efficient service delivery in the Nigerian ports.