Egyptian Islamists and the status of Muslim women question

This paper will explore the gender discourse of contemporary Egyptian Islamists and argue that their gender discourse is not merely a religious and traditional discourse, but that this politico-religious Islamic ideology articulates a quite modern construct of gender equality. The gender discourse of a number of important Egyptian Islamists, al-Banna', Qutb, al-Ghazali, al-Qaradawi and Ezzat will provide illustrations of these modern developments. Modern elements incorporated in today's Islamist revivalist approaches create new understandings, neither purely traditional, nor purely modern, that are 'modern constructs' that attempt to remain traditional, while integrating specifically modern components. The presence of these two seemingly opposing and contradictory elements may account for the present popularity that Islamist discourses enjoy in many Muslims countries

Fourier Series and Some Applications.

The object of the author in writing this thesis was to make a compilation of material necessary to work certain problems in mathematical physics with one use of Fourier series. Although whole books have been written on different aspects of this thesis, all had some intervening material which was too advanced for the average student. Any students interested in mathematics or physics cannot fail to see the importance of Fourier series. To mention a few applications, the series is used in finding the solution to various problems in heat distribution, electrical transmission, and aircraft construction

Preliminary Notes on the Life and Work of Abū al-‘Abbās al-Lawkarī (d. after 503/ 1109)

Abū al-‘Abbās al-Lawkarī (m. ca. 517/1123) es transmisor de segunda generación de la tradición avicénica. Los historiógrafos le atribuyen la difusión de la tradición filosófica en el Jūrāsān. Poco se sabe sobre su vida y obra. En este artículo reconstruyo tanto la biografía como la bibliografía de al-Lawkarī a partir de la escasa información que nos ha llegado a través de las noticias sobre sus profesores y alumnos así como sus escritos en árabe y en persa. Posteriormente, trato de las principales obras de al-Lawkarī: la árabe Bayān al-Haqq bi-Damān al-Sidq y la persa Sharh-i Qasīdah-yi Asrār al-Hikmah, un comentario sobre su propia obra Qasīdah-yi Asrār al-Hikmah. Y finalmente, intento mostrar cómo el espíritu filosófico que se desprendia de los temas tratados por al-Lawkarī en su obra fue un elemento fundamental para la pervivencia del conocimiento científico y filosófico –principalmente avicénico- que fue prosperando en las regiones orientales del mundo islámico

A new perturbative approach to the adiabatic approximation

A new and intuitive perturbative approach to time-dependent quantum mechanics problems is presented, which is useful in situations where the evolution of the Hamiltonian is slow. The state of a system which starts in an instantaneous eigenstate of the initial Hamiltonian is written as a power series which has a straightforward diagrammatic representation. Each term of the series corresponds to a sequence of "adiabatic" evolutions, during which the system remains in an instantaneous eigenstate of the Hamiltonian, punctuated by transitions from one state to another. The first term of this series is the standard adiabatic evolution, the next is the well-known first correction to it, and subsequent terms can be written down essentially by inspection. Although the final result is perhaps not terribly surprising, it seems to be not widely known, and the interpretation is new, as far as we know. Application of the method to the adiabatic approximation is given, and some discussion of the validity of this approximation is presented.Comment: 9 pages. Added references, discussion of previous results, expanded upon discussion of main result and application of i

Transiently Transfected Purine Biosynthetic Enzymes Form Stress Bodies

It has been hypothesized that components of enzymatic pathways might organize into intracellular assemblies to improve their catalytic efficiency or lead to coordinate regulation. Accordingly, de novo purine biosynthesis enzymes may form a purinosome in the absence of purines, and a punctate intracellular body has been identified as the purinosome. We investigated the mechanism by which human de novo purine biosynthetic enzymes might be organized into purinosomes, especially under differing cellular conditions. Irregardless of the activity of bodies formed by endogenous enzymes, we demonstrate that intracellular bodies formed by transiently transfected, fluorescently tagged human purine biosynthesis proteins are best explained as protein aggregation.This work was supported by grants from the United States National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and Welch (F1515) and Packard Foundations to EMM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Cellular and Molecular Biolog

Prevalence and Patterns of Major Depressive Disorder in the United States Labor Force

Background and Aims of the Study: In this paper, we identify the 12-month and lifetime prevalence of major depressive disorder in and out of the labor force, and among the employed and unemployed. We examine whether prevalence by labor force and employment status varies by gender and over the life cycle. Finally, we examine whether people can ‘recover’ from depression with time by identifying patterns of labor force participation and employment as time since most recent episode passes. Methods: We examine data collected as part of the National Comorbidity Survey, a survey representative of the population of the United States designed to identify the prevalence of major mental illnesses. The National Comorbidity Study identified cases of major depression via the Composite International Diagnostic Interview. Using these data, we estimate univariate and bivariate frequency distributions of major depressive disorder. We also estimate a set of multivariate models to identify the effect of a variety of dimensions of major depression on the propensity to participate in the labor force, and be employed if participating. Results: Lifetime and 12-month prevalence rates of depression are similar in and out of the labor force. Within the labor force, however, depression is strongly associated with unemployment. The negative relationship between depressive disorder and employment is particularly strong for middle age workers. Depression and the number of depressive episodes have a differing pattern of effects on labor market outcomes for men and women. We find evidence that labor force participation and employment rates for people with a history of depression increase significantly over time in the absence of additional depressive episodes. Discussion: Labor market status represents an important dimension along which prevalence of major depression varies. The relationship between depression and employment status is particularly strong for middle aged persons, but becomes weaker as time passes since the last depressive episode. Continued exploration of the association between work (or lack of work) and depression may ultimately help in the prediction, treatment and assessment of the illness. Implications for Practice and Policy: These results present a basic set of facts about the relationship between major depressive disorder and labor market outcomes. We have not, however, attempted to sort out the complexities of this relationship here. These complexities arise at almost every turn. For instance, the high level of prevalence of depression among the unemployed may be due to the possibility that the stresses associated with unemployment trigger depressive episodes or to the possibility that workers who are depressed are more likely to be fired or quit. Implications for Further Research: Our continuing research attempts to address these problems. Understanding when and how depression affects labor market outcomes and when and how labor market outcomes affect depression is an important endeavor for those interested in treating the disease and understanding its consequences.Funded by National Institute of Mental Health. Grant Number: R01-MH56463-0