Visual Design Principles of Ancient Art

This work presents an important investigation of design basics and the golden proportional model in Persian painted pottery motifs (late fifth-early fourth millennium B.C.) and presents a comparison among Persian, Egyptian and Grecian fundamental design basics. Generally, Persian, Egyptian and Grecian pottery motif designs have some similarities and dissimilarities in their design basics. It can be concluded that the employed elements are nearly the same for all the investigated civilizations. The techniques used to achieve the principles in Persian studied designs have been understood to be either design of Egyptian painted motif like or Grecian motif design like. The used golden proportional models were found to have distinctive variations for the different civilizations. Persian has a higher degree of diversity in golden proportional models compared resulting in a more well-performed/pleasant designs

The Egyptian wheat cultivar Gemmeiza-12 is a source of resistance against the fungus <i>Zymoseptoria tritici</i>

Background: Wheat is one of the world’s most important cereal crops. However, the fungal pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici can cause disease epidemics, leading to reduced yields. With climate change and development of new agricultural areas with suitable environments, Z. tritici may advance into geographical areas previously unaffected by this pathogen. It is currently unknown how Egyptian wheat will perform in the face of this incoming threat. This project aimed to assess the resistance of Egyptian wheat germplasm to Z. tritici, to identify cultivars with high levels of resistance and characterise the mechanism(s) of resistance present in these cultivars. Results: Eighteen Egyptian wheat cultivars were screened against two Z. tritici model isolates and exhibited a wide spectrum of responses. This ranged from resistance to complete susceptibility to one or both isolates tested. The most highly resistant cultivars from the initial screen were then tested under two environmental conditions against modern UK field isolates. Disease levels under UK-like conditions were higher, however, symptom development on the cultivar Gemmeiza-12 was noticeably slower than on other Egyptian wheats. The robustness of the resistance shown by Gemmeiza-12 was confirmed in experiments mimicking Egyptian environmental conditions, where degree of Z. tritici infection was lower. The Kompetitive allele-specific PCR (KASP) diagnostic assay suggested the presence of an Stb6 resistant allele in several Egyptian wheats including Gemmeiza-12. Infection assays using the IPO323 WT and IPO323ΔAvrStb6 mutant confirmed the presence of Stb6 in several Egyptian cultivars including Gemmeiza-12. Confocal fluorescence microscopy demonstrated that growth of the IPO323 strain is blocked at the point of stomatal penetration on Gemmeiza-12, consistent with previous reports of Stb gene mediated resistance. In addition to this R-gene mediated resistance, IPO323 spores showed lower adherence to leaves of Gemmeiza-12 compared to UK wheat varieties, suggesting other aspects of leaf physiology may also contribute to the resistance phenotype of this cultivar. Conclusion: These results indicate that Gemmeiza-12 will be useful in future breeding programs where improved resistance to Z. tritici is a priority

Intimate encounters : the materiality of translation in Egyptian novels of the late Nahḍa

textFoucault described translation as an instance of two languages colliding; Spivak calls translation “the most intimate act of reading.” Considering the two Egyptian novels ‘Uṣfūr min al-sharq by Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm (1938) and Qindīl umm hāshim by Yaḥyā Ḥaqqī (1944), this paper argues that the particularly subtle type of translation that they employ from French and English into Arabic can be best analyzed with a theoretical model of translation that, following Foucault and Spivak, emphasizes the material properties of languages, and specifically, their capacity to engage each other physically through acts of colliding, coupling, and reproducing. Such a method of analysis suggests fruitful new implications for looking at how language and literature traveled between Egypt and Europe during the so-called Arab Renaissance (the nahḍa) of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including what possibilities for the Arabic language might have emerged in its intimate engagement with the languages of the European other. Moreover, this model of translation allows us to move beyond the politicized paradigms that dominate the field of contemporary translation studies and embrace the contradictions and paradoxes inherent in any encounter between cultures, societies, and languages, and in any act of translation.Middle Eastern Studie

Identity crisis: how ideological and rhetorical failures cost Egyptians their revolution

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2019The Egyptian uprising, which began on January 25, 2011, and ended on February 11, 2011, culminated in the ending of President Hosni Mubarak's 30-year reign as dictator. After free elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood ascended to power in the country, they were ousted in a military coup d'état only one year after their ascension to power and were replaced by former military general Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi. The symptoms which led the country to rise up against Mubarak continue to exist under el-Sisi today, indicating that no revolution really took place. This paper answers the question, "why did the revolution fail?", offering a rhetorical reason for the revolution's failure. The uprisings, which were billed as decentralized, offer unique opportunities for analysis of rhetorical strategy. This paper uses the reconstitutive-discourse model, a critical model which examines a rhetor's reconstitution of their audience's character, to examine the rhetoric of three different parties in the revolution. First, it examines the rhetoric of all protestors irrespective of source via Twitter and on the ground protestors; next it looks at the rhetoric of Wael Ghonim, who is credited with instigating the uprisings, and Mohammed ElBaradei, an influential figure who became interim vice-president in the aftermath of the uprisings. The study found that first, the uprisings were not really decentralized and indeed has leaders. Further, rhetorical failures on the part of its leaders caused the uprisings to fail in their goal of democratic revolution

Egyptians Remain Optimistic, Embrace Democracy and Religion in Political Life

Presents survey findings about Egyptians' national mood and outlook, views of leaders and institutions, priorities for government, beliefs about the role of Islam in politics, attitudes toward democracy, and perceptions of the United States and Israel