The Challenges and Opportunities of Implementing an Islam-Based Education System in Canada’s Multicultural Society: The Case of the British Columbia Muslim School

Abstract This dissertation explores how the British Columbia Muslim School (BCMS) re-sponds to the tension between preserving and promoting an Islamic worldview and values and the challenge to correspond to the norms and values of the dominant soci-ety in the context of Canada’s multicultural society. The dissertation further focuses on how the school teaches students the principles of Islam to strengthen their faith and identity while providing a safe environment in which to practice their faith and adopt an Islamic way of life. It also discusses the challenges faced by students and teachers of the BCMS in practicing Islam in public. In addition, the dissertation analyses perspectives on developing multicultural com-petence; how the BCMS deals with the issue of isolation, and the compatibility of an Islamic education with Canada’s multicultural system. This dissertation argues for the development of a more open and inclusive Islamic education curriculum for the BCMS as an alternative to the present exclusive cur-riculum that, as Ramadan (2004) observes, emphasises the differences between Islam and the mainstream society. If there is a hope of creating better integrated students, the Islamic education curriculum should find a balance between preserving students’ beliefs and Islamic identity, and enhancing their multicultural competence. To this end, the Islamic education program should expand the concept of respect to in-clude non-Muslims’ beliefs and cultures, and define good Islamic practices to include good citizenship in the multicultural context. In return, this dissertation argues, Canada’s public schools, government agencies, and media outlets should develop policies aimed at challenging Islamophobia and present Islam from a perspective of peace and social justice, and not from the nega-tive images which present Islam as a religion based on extremism (Zine, 2004). Finally, the dissertation offers some recommendations for finding a balance between preserving students’ faith and identity, and enhancing their multicultural competence

CONTROL OF MR DAMPER USING ANFIS AND PID CONTROLLER FOR OPTIMUM VEHICLE RIDE COMFORT

Suspension system design is an important challenging duty that facing car manufacturers, so the challenge has become to design the best system in terms of providing ride comfort and handling ability under all driving situations. The goal of this paper is to provide assistance in enhancing the effectiveness of the suspension system. A full car model with eight Degrees Of Freedom (DOF) was developed using MATLAB/Simulink. Validation of the Simulink model was obtained. The model was assumed to travel over a speed hump that has a half sine wave shape and amplitude that changing from 0.01 to 0.2 m. The vehicle was moving with variable speeds from 20 to 120 km/h. Magneto Rheological (MR) damper was implanted to the model to study its effect on ride comfort. Adaptive-Network-based Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) was used to find the optimum voltage value applied to the MR damper, to skip the hump at least displacement. This network uses road profile and the vehicle speed as inputs. A Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller has been used to deal with potential disturbances that may affect the obtained voltage by the ANFIS. A comparison of the results for passive suspension system and model with MR damper, and system with and without PID controller, are illustrated. Results show that the MR damper gives significant improvements of the vehicle ride performance over the passive suspension system, and the PID increases the effectiveness of the system to skip the disturbance with minimal damage

Challenges of New Media Technology in Reshaping Parent-Child Communication

This study aims to determine the importance of new media and its effectiveness in communication between parent-child.  These findings demonstrate that new media technology is essential nowadays between parent and child communication.  Responses from the survey indicate that communicating with family members is very effective with smartphones using applications to converse with each other.  The importance of communication towards family is prioritized over individual needs.  In family communication, new media has helped parents and children connect in some way or another and allows a closer connection among them. Keywords: new media, communication eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2022. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia

Environmental Degradation in Malaysia's Pahang River Basin and its Relation with River Pollution: Strategic Plan from Assessment to Mitigation using Geo-Informatics

This is an established truth that with the growing world, the environmental degradation process cannot avoid but the technology is a solution to minimize this process. A sustainable development depends on plans, which are design on the strong basis of comprehensive datasets. Under this research studies, the required datasets were generated using remote sensing and GIS system integrated with field GPS surveys. The representations of these datasets further analyzed to ensure the data quality and output results. The objectives of the study were to find out the Pahang River pollution and environmental threats by assessing and analyzing different data layers of topographical, geological, hydrological, land cover, GPS surveys and satellite image. The methodology adopted to achieve the desired goals and to combat the complexity of the hydro-environmental system of Pahang River drawn from the idea to integrate the engineering tools with the geo-informatics techniques. This resultant output of the project enabled to develop a system of system for the existing and future development datasets in different research institutions in Malaysia for the decision makers and researchers. This hydro-environmental system is GIS-based and primarily data driven. However, it also has features, which were included to develop a strategic plan for the assessment of environmental degradation and its mitigation measures by focusing on the concept of sustainable healthy river for future generations and environment friendly development activities in the watershed area of the Pahang River. The planed roadmap for response functions is the salient feature of this research study, which consists of quantitative and qualitative relationships that help to the decision makers to make it understand how changes in the state of environment and river water will take part in the mitigation process for the environment degradation process

ISTRAŽIVANJE INDEKSA ANIZOTROPIJE ČVRSTOĆE ODREĐENOGA EGIPATSKOG UKRASNOG KAMENA

The nature of ornamental stones is anisotropic. The heterogeneous characteristics of the anisotropic rocks vary with direction. The highest to lowest strength ratio is known as the anisotropy strength index (ASI). A thorough investigation of the ASI is necessary to determine the best-directed loads for these rocks. On core specimens that have been bored parallel and perpendicular to the weakness planes, this is estimated using both uniaxial compression and point load testing. For this examination, four different rock types had cores that were drilled conventionally and in line with weakness planes. The research shows that drilling cores to weakness planes at a normal or nearly normal angle (90° to 60°) yields the best, most dependable ASI. According to the current study’s findings, the ASI fluctuates depending on how uniformly the mineral content and texture of rocks are. A suggested way to calculate the ASI and the load point strength is also included. This study reveals that the employment of ornamental stone as is (for example, precipitation position is more robust and reliable than that perpendicular form) is critical in determining the resilience of this type of rock and its spatial implementation (e.g. flooring).Priroda je ukrasnoga kamena anizotropna. Heterogene karakteristike anizotropnih stijena variraju prema smjeru promatranja. Omjer najveće i najmanje čvrstoće poznat je kao indeks anizotropije čvrstoće (ASI). Kod korištenja takvih stijena potrebno je temeljito istraživanje ASI-ja kako bi se utvrdio najbolji smjer opterećenja. To se procjenjuje kod ispitivanja jednoosne tlačne čvrstoće i kod ispitivanja indeksa čvrstoće opterećenjem u točki na jezgrama koje su bušene paralelno i okomito na ravnine oslabljenja. Istraživana su četiri različita tipa stijena čije su jezgre izbušene uobičajeno paralelno s ravninama oslabljenja. Istraživanje pokazuje kako bušenje jezgri do ravnine oslabljenja pod normalnim ili gotovo normalnim kutom (90° do 60°) daje najbolji, najpouzdaniji ASI. Prema rezultatima ovoga istraživanja ASI varira ovisno o ujednačenosti sadržaja minerala i teksture stijene. Također je predložen način izračunavanja ASI-ja koji uključuje indeks čvrstoće opterećenjem u točki. Ovo istraživanje otkriva da je upotreba ukrasnoga kamena po smjeru (na primjer, paralelni je smjer robusniji i pouzdaniji od okomitoga smjera) presudna u određivanju otpornosti ove vrste stijena i u njezinoj prostornoj primjeni (npr. u popločavanju)

Chest Pain Characteristics in Cardiac Syndrome X Compared to Coronary Artery Disease

AIM: This study aimed to assess if clinical remarks gained by analysis of the present and past medical history of patients undergoing elective coronary angiography (ECA) due to typical chest pain can help to predict the outcome of ECA. MATERIAL AND METHODS: One hundred and fifty-four ECA candidates with a history of typical chest were seen on the same day intended for ECA in the cardiac centre of AlShaab Teaching Hospital, Khartoum, Sudan. The details of the present complaints, characteristics of chest pain, past medical and socioeconomic history were recorded from each subject guided by a questionnaire. ECA confirmed CAD in 112 of the studied patients and were considered as the test group. The remaining patients (N = 42) were diagnosed as CSX after exclusion of significant narrowing of the coronary vessels and were considered as the control group. RESULTS: Univariate analysis of pain characteristics among patients undergoing coronary angiography revealed that pain is less likely to radiate to the neck (OR = 0.44, 95% CI = 0.21 – 0.91, P = 0.027) and the back (OR = 0.48, 95% CI = 0.23 – 1.00, P = 0.049) in patients with CAD. Presence of shortness of breathing and/or dizziness significantly decrease the odds of having abnormal coronary angiography (OR = 0.30 and 0.48, 95% CI = 0.12 – 0.77 and 0.22 – 0.92, P = 0.013 and 0.030 respectively). Past history of diabetes mellitus significantly increases the odds of having abnormal coronary angiography (OR = 3.96, 95% CI = 1.68 – 9.30, P = 0.002). In contrast, past medical history of migraine decreases the odds of having positive finding in ECA (OR = 0.31, 95% CI = 0.13 – 0.72, P = 0.006). CONCLUSION: Characteristics of chest pain are comparable in CAD and CSX. However, pain is less likely to radiate to the neck and/or the back in the first group. Presence of dyspnea and dizziness during angina attacks as well as the history of migraine significantly decreases the odds of having abnormal coronary angiography

Comparative analysis of AC and DC distribution system with respect to harmonic distortion considering daily load profile

Electrical energy is the most efficient and the cleanest form of energy at the moment that is being transmitted and distributed amongst end-users. From its earlier days, the AC system was preferred as an economical solution for transmission and distribution. However, the development in the power electronics technology and the evolution of highly efficient power electronic converters have established the resurgence of DC power system. Furthermore, the trend is shifting towards DC loads as various energy efficient appliances, such as DC inverter air conditioners, operate on DC nowadays. This further advocates the shift towards the DC power system. This research works is an effort to perform the comparative analysis of AC Distribution System (ACDS) and DC Distribution System (DCDS), with regards to power quality and harmonic distortion in particular. The comparison is performed considering load profile and load variation on daily basis. Simulations are performed in MATLAB. It has been concluded at the end that ACDS is better than DCDS in terms of power quality as total harmonic distortion of the DCDS under the same loading and same load variation during the whole day was significantly higher than that of ACDS

Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a devastating neurological syndrome, which occurs at a rate of 3–25 per 100,000 population. Smoking and hypertension are the most important risk factors of subarachnoid hemorrhage. Rupture of cerebral aneurysm leads to rapid spread of blood into cerebrospinal fluid and subsequently leads to sudden increase of intracranial pressure and severe headache. Subarachnoid hemorrhage is associated with neurological (such as re‐bleeding and vasospasm) and systemic (such as myocardial injury and hyponatremia) complications that are causes of high mortality and morbidity. Although patients with poor‐grade subarachnoid hemorrhage are at higher risk of neurological and systemic complications, the early and aggressive management of this group of patient has decreased overall mortality by 17% in last 40 years. Early aneurysm repair, close monitoring in dedicated neurological intensive care unit, prevention, and aggressive management of medical and neurological complications are the most important strategies to improve outcome