Utilitarianism and liberal religious approach and Islamic corporations: distortion vs. protection of classical Islamic law

Utilitarianism and liberal religious approaches constitute two important results of Muhammed Abdou\u27s project for modernizing Islamic law. Utilitarianism religious approach has dominated the Islamic legal field since the 19th century, the era of nationalist awakenings when Al-sanhurÄ« introduced his project on modernizing Islamic law. It requires cutting and pasting the supporting opinions to any argument from different Islamic schools of law. Liberal religious approach started gaining importance lately by modern Islamic scholars as a result of the increasing modern problems that were never discussed by classical Islamic scholars. It requires the reinterpretation of the main sources of Islamic law. The comparison between both approaches is important in revealing their effect on the content and organization classical Islamic law. The case of corporations constitutes the common discussed issue by both approaches. Modern Islamic scholars disagree on the adopted approach that reveals whether Islamic law recognizes corporations as legal persons or it does not. On one hand, Zahraa provides the jurisprudential bases for SanhurÄ«\u27s argument on the legal personality concept in Islamic law. He contends that Islamic law recognizes legal personality. Zahraa faced the problems of the lack of any classical discussions concerning legal personality and the lack of the legal personality terminology. Therefore, he adopted the selective approach on two different levels. On the first level, Zahraa selected the Islamic schools that declare the presumed legal status of the fetus and the missing persons in which the concepts of \u27ahliyyat al-wujÅ«b and dhimma are inherent. On the second level, he selected both concepts and applied them on Islamic entities. On the other hand, Kuran is the only modern scholar who adopted liberal approach in case of corporations. He contends that classical Islamic law does not recognize corporations as legal persons. Kuran reinterpreted Islam\u27s call for community building stated in the Qur\u27Ä n. This call is meant to replace the pre-Islam tribal system. Kuran contends that this call implicitly prevented the formation and the development of groups that enjoy personhood since they may affect Muslims\u27 solidarity in the Islamic East. He supported his argument when he introduced the establishment of corporations in the Christian west where the call for community building did not exist. This explains why the historical development of entities in the Islamic East does not show any incorporated form of entities a few years after the advent of Islam. This is specifically applied to the waqf. However, a millennium later, although the effect of this call diminished, other reasons contributed to the stagnation of Middle Eastern organization. The comparison between both approaches is important in revealing their effect on the content and structure of classical Islamic law. This comparison concluded in that although Zahraa perceives a distorting method to the classical Islamic writings to prove that Islamic law recognizes legal status of Islamic entities, Kuran perceives a protecting method to the classical Islamic writings to prove that Islamic law does not recognize corporations as legal persons

Developing advanced mathematical models for detecting abnormalities in 2D/3D medical structures.

Detecting abnormalities in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) medical structures is among the most interesting and challenging research areas in the medical imaging field. Obtaining the desired accurate automated quantification of abnormalities in medical structures is still very challenging. This is due to a large and constantly growing number of different objects of interest and associated abnormalities, large variations of their appearances and shapes in images, different medical imaging modalities, and associated changes of signal homogeneity and noise for each object. The main objective of this dissertation is to address these problems and to provide proper mathematical models and techniques that are capable of analyzing low and high resolution medical data and providing an accurate, automated analysis of the abnormalities in medical structures in terms of their area/volume, shape, and associated abnormal functionality. This dissertation presents different preliminary mathematical models and techniques that are applied in three case studies: (i) detecting abnormal tissue in the left ventricle (LV) wall of the heart from delayed contrast-enhanced cardiac magnetic resonance images (MRI), (ii) detecting local cardiac diseases based on estimating the functional strain metric from cardiac cine MRI, and (iii) identifying the abnormalities in the corpus callosum (CC) brain structure—the largest fiber bundle that connects the two hemispheres in the brain—for subjects that suffer from developmental brain disorders. For detecting the abnormal tissue in the heart, a graph-cut mathematical optimization model with a cost function that accounts for the object’s visual appearance and shape is used to segment the the inner cavity. The model is further integrated with a geometric model (i.e., a fast marching level set model) to segment the outer border of the myocardial wall (the LV). Then the abnormal tissue in the myocardium wall (also called dead tissue, pathological tissue, or infarct area) is identified based on a joint Markov-Gibbs random field (MGRF) model of the image and its region (segmentation) map that accounts for the pixel intensities and the spatial interactions between the pixels. Experiments with real in-vivo data and comparative results with ground truth (identified by a radiologist) and other approaches showed that the proposed framework can accurately detect the pathological tissue and can provide useful metrics for radiologists and clinicians. To estimate the strain from cardiac cine MRI, a novel method based on tracking the LV wall geometry is proposed. To achieve this goal, a partial differential equation (PDE) method is applied to track the LV wall points by solving the Laplace equation between the LV contours of each two successive image frames over the cardiac cycle. The main advantage of the proposed tracking method over traditional texture-based methods is its ability to track the movement and rotation of the LV wall based on tracking the geometric features of the inner, mid-, and outer walls of the LV. This overcomes noise sources that come from scanner and heart motion. To identify the abnormalities in the CC from brain MRI, the CCs are aligned using a rigid registration model and are segmented using a shape-appearance model. Then, they are mapped to a simple unified space for analysis. This work introduces a novel cylindrical mapping model, which is conformal (i.e., one to one transformation and bijective), that enables accurate 3D shape analysis of the CC in the cylindrical domain. The framework can detect abnormalities in all divisions of the CC (i.e., splenium, rostrum, genu and body). In addition, it offers a whole 3D analysis of the CC abnormalities instead of only area-based analysis as done by previous groups. The initial classification results based on the centerline length and CC thickness suggest that the proposed CC shape analysis is a promising supplement to the current techniques for diagnosing dyslexia. The proposed techniques in this dissertation have been successfully tested on complex synthetic and MR images and can be used to advantage in many of today’s clinical applications of computer-assisted medical diagnostics and intervention

ISLAMIC MICROFINANCE: MOVING BEYOND FINANCIAL INCLUSION

The current situation of high unemployment and the widening whole of the disadvantaged people in Muslims countries have awakened the need for proper access to microfinance. Currently, poor and low income people in Muslim countries have little access to either conventional or Islamic microfinance. This article is an attempt to investigate to what extend Islamic microfinance can best help in alleviating poverty in Muslim communities. The results showed that conventional microfinance concentrates on the lowincome group. However, it excluded the destitute people from microcredit and other related activities such as saving and skills improvement both financially and socially. Furthermore, the result indicates that Islamic microfinance is moving beyond conventional counterpart to provide effective social and financial inclusion simultaneously. This is done through Islamic social tools such as Sadaqah, waqf, and Zakah, which is to be given directly to the extremely poor either in cash or in kind to satisfy their basic needs before granting them microcredit.Thus, these results are a good motivation to those who provide microfinance in these countries to improve the social and financial inclusions of the disadvantaged people. Hence, this can be achieved by adopting Islamic microcredit

ISLAMIC MICROFINANCE: MOVING BEYOND FINANCIAL INCLUSION

The current situation of high unemployment and the widening whole of the disadvantaged people in Muslims countries have awakened the need for proper access to microfinance. Currently, poor and low income people in Muslim countries have little access to either conventional or Islamic microfinance. This article is an attempt to investigate to what extend Islamic microfinance can best help in alleviating poverty in Muslim communities. The results showed that conventional microfinance concentrates on the lowincome group. However, it excluded the destitute people from microcredit and other related activities such as saving and skills improvement both financially and socially. Furthermore, the result indicates that Islamic microfinance is moving beyond conventional counterpart to provide effective social and financial inclusion simultaneously. This is done through Islamic social tools such as Sadaqah, waqf, and Zakah, which is to be given directly to the extremely poor either in cash or in kind to satisfy their basic needs before granting them microcredit.Thus, these results are a good motivation to those who provide microfinance in these countries to improve the social and financial inclusions of the disadvantaged people. Hence, this can be achieved by adopting Islamic microcredit

THE INFLUENCE OF THE STORAGE TEMPERATURE ON THE ACTIVITY OF THE RECONSTITUTED ORAL AMPICILLIN SUSPENSIONS

The following sets of experiments were conducted to investigate the extent of degradation of ampicillin antibiotic in suspension formulations stored at two different temperatures. The only variable in these experiments was the storage temperature. Oral ampicillin powders were reconstituted with distilled water and stored at two different temperatures of 5o and 35oC respectively representing the refrigeration and average room temperature in Sudan. The reconstituted ampicillin suspensions were assayed for initial drug contents, and then daily for a period of seven days in order to determine the effect of the storage temperature on the stability of reconstituted oral ampicillin suspensions. The drug contents in the different samples were determined using the microbiological cup plate method and the chemical spectrophotometric technique. The results obtained showed a remarkable decrease in the activity of the oral ampicillin suspensions stored at room temperature, when compared with the refrigerated ones. Recommendation of a unit-dose sachet package of ampicillin oral powder to be reconstituted at the time of intake was suggested

Peptide cluster in the gaseous phase

In this work the formation of clusters caused by non-covalent interactions between matrix molecules and short-chain peptides (i.e. di-, tri- and tetra-peptides) has been investigated by using a laser mass spectrometer. After the desorption achieved by using IR laser radiation the molecules are transported with the support of a supersonic jet into the ionisation chamber. Thus their internal degrees of freedom are cooled. As a result the formation of weakly bonded clusters are observed. The formation of clusters in the gas phase consisting of peptides could be shown by using a combination of laser desorption and multi photon ionisation. Under the ionization conditions a direct ionization of these peptides is not possible because they lack an adequate chromophoric system. The cluster have been detected by mixing with several derivatives of benzoic acid and cinnamic acid, which are standard matrix substances to be used in the matrix assisted laser desorption / ionisation technique. The measurements demonstrate that the formation of peptide clusters in the gas phase are possible by applying nano-second laser pulses. Additionally the formation of protonated homogenous peptide clusters respectively heterogeneous clusters of the matrix can be observed. Besides the formation of clusters in the gas phase, a further result of this work shows the possibility of gas phase reaction in the cluster. The simple proton transfer reaction as well as reactions between then proton donator and the peptide are observed. The following results regarding the gas phase reaction with tryptophan as a proton donator show: · The separation of water from the ionised peptide-matrix-cluster shows that it is possible to observe the prolongation of the peptide chain and thus the formation of peptide bonding in the gas phase for the first time. · The relative intensity of the signals of the separation of water increases when changing from 260 nm to 290 nm. This means, that the reaction of peptide bond- formation has a lower activation energy. · During the dissociative proton transfer the proton is transferred from the nitrogen of the indole ring of tryptophan to the analyte molecule. This could be demonstrated in experiments with protected derivatives of tryptophan. · Characteristic patterns of fragmentation pathway could be shown with help of mass spectra for tri- and tetra-peptides. Based on the results of the fragmentation reactions in many experiments between di-, tri- and tetra-peptides and vanillic acid as matrix, and on additional experiments with complete deuteration of the phenolic proton and the carboxylic proton of the vanillic acid it could be demonstrated that the intramolecular proton transfer is performed from the n-terminal side of the peptide chain to the c-terminal side

The psychopathic offender

Psychopathy is a subject which is now being duscussed with increasing interest in forensic psychiatry, criminology and sociological circles. The aim of this thesis is to show that the problem of the so-called psychopath is not the province of psychiatrists. The reason for this is that the psychiatric approach ignores any social or ethical factors in its approach to this behavioural problem. The writer attempted to prove that social and environmental factors are the most crucial in determining the condition. In an attempt to rebut the alleged plausibility of the medico-scientific explanation of this phenomenon, the writer produced evidence from various sources in an attempt to show that psychopathy stems from inadequate upbringing rather than heredity, brain damage or disease. As far as the legal position of psychopaths is concerned the law (in Scotland and England) seldom regards those individuals as mentally abnormal. In the writer's opinion the side effect of adopting a relative concept such as abnormality, explaining psychopathic behaviour, is hazardous and may lead to the use of the legal system itself to produce real injustice and social harm. The question of responsibility was also dealt with. It was noted that there is no chance for psychopaths to benefit from the plea of insanity either in England or in Scotland. Under English law a diagnosis of psychopathy is recognised by the courts as an acceptable basis for a defence of diminished responsibility in many of the cited cases. In Scotland the courts denied the application of the doctrine to psychopaths. For this reason the legal position of psychopaths in England and Scotland is dealt with separately in the text