The Dilemma of the Clash between the Interest (Al-Maslahah) and the Text and the Criteria used to Balance between Both

This study aims at drawing borderlines of the textual extent that is open for the human mind to interpret the holy text depending on the legally considered interest (Al-Maslahah Al-Mu`tabarah). It also aims at showing the types of such interpretations. The study consists of an introduction, two chapters and a conclusion. The introduction discusses how people differ in the criteria they use to consider the interest, why that happens, what the Muslims stand is on the mental interpretation of the holy text, and finally draws the general zone within which the mind is allowed to interfere in the interpretation of the text. Next, in the first chapter the researcher explains the first kind of possible clash between the text (Dhahir Al-Nuss) and the interest which is considered by the same text. In the second chapter, the researcher explains the second kind of clash between the text (Dhahir Al-Nuss) and the interest which is considered by other texts. Then he suggests criteria to decide the stronger side. In the conclusion, the researcher outlines the most important findings of the study. Key Words: The Dilemma Clash , Interest , (Al-Maslahah) , Text and the Criteria , Balanc

Quantum Holography

We propose to make use of quantum entanglement for extracting holographic information about a remote 3-D object in a confined space which light enters, but from which it cannot escape. Light scattered from the object is detected in this confined space entirely without the benefit of spatial resolution. Quantum holography offers this possibility by virtue of the fourth-order quantum coherence inherent in entangled beams.Comment: 7 pages, submitted to Optics Expres

Epidemiological Insights of Foot and Mouth Disease Virus Infection among Cattle and Buffaloes in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is endemic in Egypt and in most parts of Africa causing huge economic losses. Control of FMD using vaccination requires information on the occurrence of various FMDV serotypes. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of FMDV serotypes in Sharkia Governorate, Egypt. A total number of 643 different samples, within ten different localities, were collected from both cattle and buffaloes (n = 283) of different, age, sex, immune status against FMD, and health status. Field samples (n = 360) have been screened for FMDV by RT-PCR using universal primers and were further subtyped using serotype-specific primers. Additionally, serum samples (n = 283) have been analyzed by applying FMDV serotype-specific antibody ELISA. The RT-PCR screening revealed that a total number of 39/283 (13.8%), 61/283 (21.6%) and 17/38 (44.7%) animals were positive for FMDV serotype O, A and SAT2, respectively. While, by ELISA, neutralizing antibodies directed against FMDV serotype O, A, and SAT2, were found in 177/283 (62.5%), 171/283 (60.4%) and 27/38 (71.1%) serum samples, respectively. These results indicated the endemic status of the FMDV serotypes O, A and SAT2 in Sharkia Governorate despite routine FMD vaccination programs. Although many variations of disease prevalence were recorded between animals of different, age, sex and immune and health status but it was obvious that FMD was more prominent and prevalent in buffaloes (47.1%) than in cattle (34.1%). Therefore, control efforts should focus on reducing the circulation of FMDV among susceptible livestock with special attention towards water buffaloes. Continuous surveillance, at molecular and immunological levels, of FMDV serotypes is needed for the effectiveness of any adopted control strategy targeting FMD including vaccination

Interferometric control of the photon-number distribution

We demonstrate deterministic control over the photon-number distribution by interfering two coherent beams within a disordered photonic lattice. By sweeping a relative phase between two equal-amplitude coherent fields with Poissonian statistics that excite adjacent sites in a lattice endowed with disorder-immune chiral symmetry, we measure an output photon-number distribution that changes periodically between super-thermal and sub-thermal photon statistics upon ensemble averaging. Thus, the photon-bunching level is controlled interferometrically at a fixed mean photon-number by gradually activating the excitation symmetry of the chiral-mode pairs with structured coherent illumination and without modifying the disorder level of the random system itself

Synthesis and Analysis of Entangled Photonic Qubits in Spatial-Parity Space

We present the novel embodiment of a photonic qubit that makes use of one continuous spatial degree of freedom of a single photon and relies on the the parity of the photon's transverse spatial distribution. Using optical spontaneous parametric downconversion to produce photon pairs, we demonstrate the controlled generation of entangled-photon states in this new space. Specifically, two Bell states, and a continuum of their superpositions, are generated by simple manipulation of a classical parameter, the optical-pump spatial parity, and not by manipulation of the entangled photons themselves. An interferometric device, isomorphic in action to a polarizing beam splitter, projects the spatial-parity states onto an even--odd basis. This new physical realization of photonic qubits could be used as a foundation for future experiments in quantum information processing.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PR

Reasons for unit non-response in household Surveys in the Arab Gulf Countries

For in-person household surveys, it is fundamental to consider societal customs when choosing appropriate times and interviewer gender. However, even after all these procedures were taken into consideration with an eye to improving or maintaining our Qatari survey response rates, our recorded cases of refusal to participate in polls increased significantly in a relatively short time frame. From early 2011, when the percentage of refusal cases reported at only 3.7% in the Social & Economic Survey Research Institute’s (SESRI) Social Capital survey, to the end of 2012, this proportion jumped to 14.6% in our Health and Expenditure survey. In this paper we will try to assess the drivers of non-response in SESRI’s 2012-2013 surveys, to better understand the reasons for non-response , by focused on refusal causes among survey participants without regard to other disposition statuses in the surveys. Our refusals numbered 1,263 representing 14% of the total number of selected respondents participating in our surveys (9062), and exactly (376) of the refusals (30%) also refused to disclose any reasons for their decision. In all, 887 of our refusal cases agreed to provide a reason for their non-participation.SESRI- Qatar Universit

Early outcomes of transection of secondary chordae with downsized ring annuloplasty in low recurrence risk severe ischemic mitral regurgitation

Background: Relying solely on restrictive annuloplasty for the repair of ischemic mitral regurgitation is associated with an unacceptable rate of recurrence. Transection of secondary chordae as an adjunctive procedure has been proposed to improve results.Patient and methods: This is a prospective observational study including 20 patients who underwent mitral repair using downsized annuloplasty ring and transection of the secondary chordae, at the time of CABG at the Cardiothoracic Surgery Department of Cairo University Hospitals through the period between March 2016 and October 2018. The primary outcome being examined was the recurrence of significant mitral regurgitation at 6 months postoperatively. Secondary outcomes included coaptation length and ejection fraction.Results: The mean age was 57.5 ± 6.9 years. The mean ejection fraction was 45.1 ± 11%. There was one early mortality (5%). At 6 months postoperatively, there was no incidence of recurrence of significant mitral regurgitation. Coaptation length was quite satisfactory (7.2 ± 0.67 mm).Conclusion: Transection of secondary chordae is a safe and simple option. It may be beneficial when performed in combination with downsized ring annuloplasty in patients with low-risk ischemic mitral regurgitation

Detecting Students At-Risk Using Learning Analytics

The issue of supporting struggling tertiary students has been a long-standing concern in academia. Universities are increasingly devoting resources to supporting underperforming students, to enhance each student’s ability to achieve better academic performance, alongside boosting retention rates. However, identifying such students represents a heavy workload for educators, given the significant increases in tertiary student numbers over the past decade. Utilising the power of learning analytic approaches can help to address this problem by analysing diverse students' characteristics in order to identify underperforming students. Automated, early detection of students who are at potential risk of failing or dropping out of academic courses enhances the lecturers' capacity to supply timely and proactive interventions with minimal effort, and thereby ultimately improve university outcomes. This thesis focuses on the early detection of struggling students in blended learning settings, based on their online learning activities. Online learning data were used to extract a wide range of online learning characteristics using diverse quantitative, social and qualitative analysis approaches, including developing an automated mechanism to weight sentiments expressed in post messages, using combinations of adverbs, strengths. The extracted variables are used to predict academic performance in timely manner. The particular interest of this thesis is on providing accurate, early predictions of students’ academic risk. Hence, we proposed a novel Grey Zone design to enhance the quality of binary predictive instruments, where the experimental results illustrate its positive overall impact on the predictive models, performances. The experimental results indicate that utilising the Grey Zone design improves prediction-accuracy by up to 25 percent when compared with other commonly-used prediction strategies. Furthermore, this thesis involves developing an exemplar multi-course early warning framework for academically at-risk students on a weekly basis. The predictive framework relies on online learning characteristics to detect struggling students, from which was developed the Grey Zone design. In addition, the multi-course framework was evaluated using a set of unseen datasets drawn from four diverse courses (N = 319) to determine its performance in a real-life situation, alongside identifying the optimal time to start the student interventions. The experimental results show the framework’s ability to provide early, quality predictions, where it achieved over 0.92 AUC points across most of the evaluated courses. The framework's predictivity analysis indicates that week 3 is the optimal week to establish support interventions. Moreover, within this thesis, an adaptive framework and algorithms were developed to allow the underlying predictive instrument to cope with any changes that may occur due to dynamic changes in the prediction concept. The adaptive framework and algorithms are designed to be applied with a predictive instrument developed for the multi-course framework. The developed adaptive strategy was evaluated over two adaptive scenarios, with and without utilising a forgetting mechanism for historical instances. The results show the ability of the proposed adaptive strategy to enhance the performance of updated predictive instruments when compared with the performance of an unupdated, static baseline model. Utilising a forgetting mechanism for historical data instances led the system to achieve significantly faster and better adaptation outcomes.Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Computer Science, 201