Islamic Feminism: A Discourse of Gender Justice and Equality

This paper examines Islamic feminism using structural methodology and the phenomenological approach to examine the component of Muslim feminists\u27 activism that utilizes ijtihad and tafsir to reinterpret patriarchal rhetoric and highlight Islamic discourses that validate gender equality. These scholars and activists critically analyze Islamic theology by employing hermeneutics in order to produce Islamic exegeses that affirm social justice, gender equality, and liberation. Religion plays a critical role in building collective cultural identities; therefore, examining sacred texts\u27 representation and prescription of gender roles and mores generates an understanding of the gender order in the community of believers, while simultaneously exposing contextual patriarchal inaccuracies that result in gender inequities. Muslim scholar-activists engage in this work to re-appropriate their cultural self-definition by emphasizing the socio-political environments that shaped the interpretations of the Qur’an and Hadiths in order to promote justice and affirm gender equality within an Islamic paradigm. A liberatory theology legitimized by Islamic sacred texts not only confronts systemic and systematic repressive practices against women but also mandates reflexive change in Islamic societies. Muslims\u27 collective identity is couched within an Islamic discourse; therefore, Muslim scholar-activists\u27 reinterpretation of sacred texts has the potential to enable a genuine cultural paradigm shift that can establish the necessary milieu for progressive women’s rights to not only be proposed but also implemented successfully in Islamic societies. This paper evaluates the growing academic literature on reform-oriented Muslim scholar-activists and specifically focuses on the ways in which Islamic feminists reinterpret the Qur’an by employing ijtihad and tafsir to 1) contextualize verses and revelations; 2) search for the best meaning as charged by the Qur’an; 3) compare specific words or ayats with the syntactical composition elsewhere in the sacred text; and, 4) read ayat and suras in a holistic manner with the Qur’an’s broader thematic message in mind. Their reinterpretations set the foundation for Islamic feminists\u27 activism in broader society that seeks to eliminate social discrimination, promote social justice, and progress human equality and dignity. This examination of Muslim scholar-activists\u27 hermeneutics illustrates that Islamic feminism is a viable avenue to empower Muslim women and foster grass-roots cultural transformation in Muslim societies towards more gender egalitarian attitudes and practices. I argue that Islamic feminist scholars’ hermeneutics unshackles Islam’s liberatory theology and egalitarian message from patriarchal inaccuracies

Escaping the middle income trap

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"Into the Woods": The Experiences and Preparation of Teachers Who Direct Secondary School Musical Theatre

This study examines the personal investment of four NSW Independent secondary school music and drama teachers who direct musical theatre productions. It considers these teachers’ attitudes and beliefs regarding the social and educational value of such productions, and the manner in which these productions exist within the schools that produce them. Through semi-structured interviews with these four teachers, this study outlines their experiences in producing and directing these musical theatre productions and their preparation for such involvement. By examining the relationship between the preparation and experiences of these teachers in relation to their beliefs and opinions regarding available training, this study also considers the implications of this data in regard to music education degrees

Unintended consequences of reducing QT-alert overload in a computerized physician order entry system

Purpose: After complaints of too many low-specificity drug-drug interaction (DDI) alerts on QT prolongation, the rules for QT alerting in the Dutch national drug database were restricted in 2007 to obviously QT-prolonging drugs. The aim of this virtual study was to investigate whether this adjustment would improve the identification of patients at risk of developing Torsades de Pointes (TdP) due to QT-prolonging drug combinations in a computerized physician order entry system (CPOE) and whether these new rules should be implemented. Methods: During a half-year study period, inpatients with overridden DDI alerts regarding QT prolongation and with an electrocardiogram recorded before and within 1 month of the alert override were included if they did not have a ventricular pacemaker and did not use the low-risk combination cotrimoxazole and tacrolimus. QT-interval prolongation and the risk of developing TdP were calculated for all patients and related to the number of patients for whom a QT-alert would be generated in the new situation with the restricted database. Results: Forty-nine patients (13%) met the inclusion criteria. In this study population, knowledge base-adjustment would reduce the number of alerts by 53%. However, the positive predictive value of QT alerts would not change (31% before and 30% after) and only 47% of the patients at risk of developing TdP would be identified in CPOEs using the adjusted knowledge base. Conclusion: The new rules for QT alerting would result in a poorer identification of patients at risk of developing TdP than the old rules. This is caused by the many non-drug-related risk factors for QT prolongation not being incorporated in CPOE alert generation. The partial contribution of all risk factors should be studied and used to create clinical rules for QT alerting with an acceptable positive predictive value

Heisenberg models and a particular isotropic model

The Heisenberg model, a quantum mechanical analogue of the Ising model, has a large ground state degeneracy, due to the symmetry generated by the total spin. This symmetry is also responsible for degeneracies in the rest of the spectrum. We discuss the global structure of the spectrum of Heisenberg models with arbitrary couplings, using group theoretical methods. The Hilbert space breaks up in blocks characterized by the quantum numbers of the total spin, $S$ and $M$, and each block is shown to constitute the representation space of an explicitly given irreducible representation of the symmetric group $S_N$, consisting of permutations of the $N$ spins in the system. In the second part of the paper we consider, as a concrete application, the model where each spin is coupled to all the other spins with equal strength. Its partition function is written as a single integral, elucidating its $N$-dependence. This provides a useful framework for studying finite size effects. We give explicit results for the heat capacity, revealing interesting behavior just around the phase transition.Comment: 16 pages LaTeX, one of the 2 figures included as a postscript file. Oxford preprint OUTP-93-18S, to be published in Phys. Rev.

The non-Abelian dual Meissner effect as color-alignment in SU(2) lattice gauge theory

A new gauge (m-gauge) condition is proposed by means of a generalization of the Maximal Abelian gauge (MAG). The new gauge admits a space time dependent embedding of the residual U(1) into the SU(2) gauge group. This embedding is characterized by a color vector $\vec{m}(x)$. It turns out that this vector only depends of gauge invariant parts of the link configurations. Our numerical results show color ferromagnetic correlations of the $\vec{m}(x)$ field in space-time. The correlation length scales towards the continuum limit. For comparison with the MAG, we introduce a class of gauges which smoothly interpolates between the MAG and the m-gauge. For a wide range of the gauge parameter, the vacuum decomposes into regions of aligned vectors $\vec{m}$. The ''neutral particle problem'' of MAG is addressed in the context of the new gauge class.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX using eps

Development of a context model to prioritize drug safety alerts in CPOE systems

Background: Computerized physician order entry systems (CPOE) can reduce the number of medication errors and adverse drug events (ADEs) in healthcare institutions. Unfortunately, they tend to produce a large number of partly irrelevant alerts, in turn leading to alert overload and causing alert fatigue. The objective of this work is to identify factors that can be used to prioritize and present alerts depending on the 'context' of a clinical situation. Methods: We used a combination of literature searches and expert interviews to identify and validate the possible context factors. The internal validation of the context factors was performed by calculating the inter-rater agreement of two researcher's classification of 33 relevant articles. Results: We developed a context model containing 20 factors. We grouped these context factors into three categories: characteristics of the patient or case (e. g. clinical status of the patient); characteristics of the organizational unit or user (e. g. professional experience of the user); and alert characteristics (e. g. severity of the effect). The internal validation resulted in nearly perfect agreement (Cohen's Kappa value of 0.97). Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first structured attempt to develop a comprehensive context model for prioritizing drug safety alerts in CPOE systems. The outcome of this work can be used to develop future tailored drug safety alerting in CPOE systems

Improving medication safety in the Intensive Care by identifying relevant drug-drug interactions - Results of a multicenter Delphi study

Purpose: Drug-drug interactions (DDIs) may cause adverse outcomes in patients admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Computerized decision support systems (CDSSs) may help prevent DDIs by timely showing relevant warning alerts, but knowledge on which DDIs are clinically relevant in the ICU setting is limited. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to identify DDIs relevant for the ICU. Materials and methods: We conducted a modified Delphi procedure with a Dutch multidisciplinary expert panel consisting of intensivists and hospital pharmacists to assess the clinical relevance of DDIs for the ICU. The procedure consisted of two rounds, each included a questionnaire followed by a live consensus meeting. Results: In total the clinical relevance of 148 DDIs was assessed, of which agreement regarding the relevance was reached for 139 DDIs (94%). Of these 139 DDIs, 53 (38%) were considered not clinically relevant for the ICU setting. Conclusions: A list of clinically relevant DDIs for the ICU setting was established on a national level. The clinical value of CDSSs for medication safety could be improved by focusing on the identified clinically relevant DDIs, thereby avoiding alert fatigue

Dynamics of the QTc interval over a 24-h dose interval after start of intravenous ciprofloxacin or low-dose erythromycin administration in ICU patients

QTc interval prolongation is an adverse effect associated with the use of fluoroquinolones and macrolides. Ciprofloxacin and erythromycin are both frequently prescribed QTc-prolonging drugs in critically ill patients. Critically ill patients may be more vulnerable to developing QTc prolongation, as several risk factors can be present at the same time. Therefore, it is important to know the QTc-prolonging potential of these drugs in the intensive care unit (ICU) population. The aim of this study was to assess the dynamics of the QTc interval over a 24-hour dose interval during intravenous ciprofloxacin and low-dose erythromycin treatment. Therefore, an observational study was performed in ICU patients (>= 18 years) receiving ciprofloxacin 400 mg t.i.d. or erythromycin 100 mg b.i.d. intravenously. Continuous ECG data were collected from 2 h before to 24 h after the first administration. QT-analyses were performed using high-end holter software. The effect was determined with a two-sample t-test for clustered data on all QTc values. A linear mixed model by maximum likelihood was applied, for which QTc values were assessed for the available time intervals and therapy. No evident effect over time on therapy with ciprofloxacin and erythromycin was observed on QTc time. There was no significant difference (p = 0.22) in QTc values between the ciprofloxacin group (mean 393 ms) and ciprofloxacin control group (mean 386 ms). The erythromycin group (mean 405 ms) and erythromycin control group (mean 404 ms) neither showed a significant difference (p = 0.80). In 0.6% of the registrations (1.138 out of 198.270 samples) the duration of the QTc interval was longer than 500 ms. The index groups showed slightly more recorded QTc intervals over 500 ms. To conclude, this study could not identify differences in the QTc interval between the treatments analyzed.Clinical Pharmacy and Toxicolog