Economy, Technology and the Environment: The Islamic Middle Way

Dr. Ahmad considers some specifics of the ways in which the Qur\'an, the Prophetic traditions and Islamic law lead toward a path of moderation between extremes, in terms of both belief and behavior: in favor of free markets, but with property rights clearly defined to prevent fraud and unfairness; in favor of technology, but not materialism; and with a concept of trusteeship of the environment that accommodates both development and stewardship

Islamic Contributions to Modern Scientific Methods

The author suggests that the rise of modern science was not a revolutionary development confined to modern Europe, hut an evolutionary process that began in the Islamic civilization. He reviews those elements of the Islamic religious outlook that appear to have transformed science from the deductive methodology of the ancient Greeks to the inductive approach of tnodernity. Finally, he suggests that the supposed inherent tension between religion and science is a consequence of the sudden exposure of medieval European culture to the \"new\" scientific paradigm that had evolved in the Muslim World

When and By How Much Can Helper Node Selection Improve Regenerating Codes?

Regenerating codes (RCs) can significantly reduce the repair-bandwidth of distributed storage networks. Initially, the analysis of RCs was based on the assumption that during the repair process, the newcomer does not distinguish (among all surviving nodes) which nodes to access, i.e., the newcomer is oblivious to the set of helpers being used. Such a scheme is termed the blind repair (BR) scheme. Nonetheless, it is intuitive in practice that the newcomer should choose to access only those "good" helpers. In this paper, a new characterization of the effect of choosing the helper nodes in terms of the storage-bandwidth tradeoff is given. Specifically, answers to the following fundamental questions are given: Under what conditions does proactively choosing the helper nodes improve the storage-bandwidth tradeoff? Can this improvement be analytically quantified? This paper answers the former question by providing a necessary and sufficient condition under which optimally choosing good helpers strictly improves the storage-bandwidth tradeoff. To answer the latter question, a low-complexity helper selection solution, termed the family repair (FR) scheme, is proposed and the corresponding storage/repair-bandwidth curve is characterized. For example, consider a distributed storage network with 60 total number of nodes and the network is resilient against 50 node failures. If the number of helper nodes is 10, then the FR scheme and its variant demonstrate 27% reduction in the repair-bandwidth when compared to the BR solution. This paper also proves that under some design parameters, the FR scheme is indeed optimal among all helper selection schemes. An explicit construction of an exact-repair code is also proposed that can achieve the minimum-bandwidth-regenerating point of the FR scheme. The new exact-repair code can be viewed as a generalization of the existing fractional repetition code.Comment: 35 pages, 10 figures, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Information Theory on September 04, 201

Inflation accounting in developing countries : the case of Iraq

This study is concerned with how to account for inflation, in financial reports within the industrial sector. The study aims to recommend an inflation accounting approach which will provide government and managements with information required for decision-making and control. Iraq has been chosen as an example for Arab countries to find out how management reacts to changes in price level in companies' accounts. In order to achieve this object, a field study has been conducted to discover whether inflation accounting systems are well known and used in Iraqi companies. Moreover, the study examines and assesses the different accounting measurements which have been suggested for financial reports during periods of inflation. In the light of an evaluation of different accounting methods advocated for use during inflation times, a system is recommended for use in Iraqi Industrial Companies. This study starts with the assumption that management needs accounting information which takes into account changes in prices; is provided frequently and in enough detail; is provided on time, and is relevant to management information needs. The study is made in several stages. The first deals with the importance and need for study of inflation accounting. The users of accounting are then considered. Measurement methods which are used for inflation accounting in several countries are discussed. The second stage is the case study, which deals with Iraqi industrial companies. The final stage provides an assessment of the findings and draws conclusion for future practice. This work has been carried through and completed during times of wide and great changes in polity, in expectations of national development, in our understanding of inflation and of the purpose and techniques of inflation accounting. Such changes were discussed during the examination

Impact of Privatization on Lebanese Economy

Privatization of government services is the action that has been taken by local, state, and federal governments to allow private companies to offer their service instead. However, issues have aroused on the benefits and limitations of privatization on the well-being of its people. This study aimed at examining the impact of privatization on Lebanese economy. The paper will seek to answer if the Lebanese government can use this analogy to solve a plethora of issues that the economy is currently battling. The research used mixed method approach where data was collected following both qualitative and quantitative research strategies. A survey collecting data from the management of both privatized firms and government firms was used to come up with the results. The research also looked into the financial and operation performance of the already privatized firms to assess the performance over time. The telecommunication sector which was the first privatized industry is used as the benchmark of this study. The research found out that privatization is a double-edged sword that impacts the social wellbeing both positively and negatively. Regarding solving the ongoing financial and economic crisis, privatization seems to be an effective tool as it will reduce the administrative power of the management and thus lower the level of corruption in the economy which is one of the major contributions of the undergoing crisis. Keywords: Privatization, Lebanon, Lebanese crisis, telecommunication sector DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-8-06 Publication date: April 30th 202

Security threats of finger print biometric in network system environment

Biometrics-based personal authentication systems that use physiological (e.g., fingerprint, face) or behavioral (e.g., speech, handwriting) traits are becoming increasingly popular, compared to traditional systems that are based on tokens (e.g., key) or knowledge (e.g., password). On the other hand, biometric systems are vulnerable to attacks, which can decrease their security. This paper analyzes and surveys the vulnerabilities and security threats of the finger print biometric systems used for access control and the authentication of access to confidential information in network system environment. As analysis tools, two biometric network models are implemented and connected to see some of the arguments of the vulnerabilities and security threats. Based on that, analysis and surveying, experimental solutions and countermeasures are presented

Transport coefficients for drifting Maxwellian plasmas: The effect of Coulomb collisions

We derive the collisional momentum and energy transport coefficients in Maxwellian plasmas with a general drift velocity with respect to the ambient magnetic field by using two approaches, the Fokker-Planck approximation and Boltzmann collision integral. We find the transport coefficients obtained from Fokker-Planck representation are similar to those obtained by using Boltzmann collision integral approach, and both results are presented in a closed form in terms of hypergeometric functions. This has been done for drifting Maxwellian plasmas with special emphasis on Coulomb collision, i.e. inverse-square force. Also, we calculate the transport coefficients for two special cases, firstly, when the drift velocity is parallel to the ambient magnetic field (i.e. u = u∥, and zero perpendicular drift velocity), and secondly, when the drift velocity is perpendicular to the ambient magnetic field (i.e. u = u⊥, and zero parallel drift velocity). It is worthy to mention that, up to our knowledge, none of the derived transport coefficients for the above mentioned case are presented in closed form and in terms of hypergeometric function