The Scenario of Zakah Management in Bangladesh: A Critical Analysis

The aim of the study is to describe and analyze the real scenario of zakah management in Bangladesh. Zakah is an important tool to eradicate poverty in the country and it can play a vital role in alleviating unemployment too. About 91.04% of the total population of the country is Muslim. A good number of Muslims are capable of paying zakah annually. However, the zakah management system in urban or rural areas is poor. And the capable people on whom zakah is compulsory are not so positive about distributing zakah among (mustahaqqun) the beneficiary group. Mustahaqqun means the class of people who are eligible to collect zakah according to Islamic Shariah. Almost, all the zakah payers are not aware enough to pay zakah in the defined Sariah way. Only a few people legally pay their zakah portion among the eligible class. For this, the actual method of zakah distribution management in Bangladesh is not exercised and executed properly. This is why, the real beneficiary group is not facilitated in a systematic way. This study also tries to focus on the challenges of zakah distribution management in Bangladesh and tries to highlight the effective recommendations for resolving these problems

Development of Emergency Planning and Response Model Based on OSHA Process Safety Management Requirement

When incidents happen and the consequences are not mitigated effectively, one of the indicated failures consists of ineffective emergency response planning (EPR). EPR is an important aspect of the Process Safety Management (PSM) Standards and the guidelines are stated in CFR 1910.119 (n) which explains the minimum elements of emergency response and procedures in handling emergency or small releases. Despite its implementation in 1992, CSB finds ineffective EPR system in certain accidents such as the Missouri DPS Enterprise Chlorine Gas Release accident in 2002. DPS EPR failed in planning on location of emergency equipment and accessibility. Many other accidents has occurred throughout the decade and even though organizations have their own EPR system, there are issues in meeting minimum PSM requirements. There also exists the problem of self-regulatory policies practiced by organizations which might not meet these requirements as well. To help organizations meet these minimum requirements, the purpose of this paper is to present a structured and easy technique to plan and implement EPR as per PSM requirements. A model has been developed based on this technique and its application has been tested as a case study in a refinery in Malaysia and discussed in this report. The results reflected the feasibility of this model as it helped users track and manage documents better. This technique has the potential to help users manage EPR better to reduce adverse impacts to people, environment and asset

Longitudinal growth of mammalian bones: a possible role for membrane transporters in mediating chondrocyte hypertrophy

Long bone lengthening occurs at the growth plate (GP) by well-regulated chondrocyte proliferation, hypertrophy and terminal matrix deposition. GP chondrocyte (GPC) hypertrophy has been implicated to be the main determinant of bone growth rate; however the mechanism is poorly understood. The work of this thesis examined some of the cellular process that drives the chondrocyte swelling or hypertrophy particularly in a mammalian post natal GPs using living in situ GPC and fixed GP tissues. Confocal scanning microscopy (CLSM) was used to determine living in situ GPC volume and dimension changes in proliferative zone (PZ) through to hypertrophic zone (HZ) chondrocytes of different GPs of various bones. While PZ cells showed similar volumes and dimensions, HZ cells varied in different GPs, even within the same long bone but at opposite ends. However, the hypertrophic cell volume measured at a single post natal age (day 7) was independent of the corresponding bone length. This could reflect a complex interplay between local and systemic factors in different GPs, which occurs throughout the active phase of bone growth. Maintaining GPC morphology was critical in studying GPC hypertrophy using fixed tissues. This work highlighted a problem caused by conventional fixative solutions, which caused up to 44% hypertrophic GPC shrinkage following GP fixation. This artifact appeared to be associated with the hyperosmotic nature of the fixatives used and could be abolished by adjusting the fixative osmolarity close to physiological level (280 mOsm), or could be significantly reduced by bisecting bone tissues prior to tissue fixation. This thesis proposed roles for plasma membrane transporter(s) in mediating GPC hypertrophy. This hypothesis was tested by examining roles of sodium-hydrogen exchanger (NHE) and anion exchanger (AE) in GPC hypertrophy using an ex vivo bone growth inhibition model. Inhibition of bone growth by inhibitors of NHE (EIPA) and AE (DIDS) respectively was shown to be dose-dependent. The histology of bones demonstrated that the late HZ width was significantly reduced in GPs treated with EIPA or DIDS. Although in situ GPC volumes in the PZ and HZ were not notably different in DIDS-treated GP, the cell volumes in both zones were significantly reduced by EIPA treatment. Fluorescence immunohistochemistry revealed distinctive cellular localisations of NHE1 and AE2 in the PZ and early HZ. These results suggest a possible role of AE in mediating GPC volume increase in PZ chondrocytes and those in the early stages of cell hypertrophy, whereas NHE could possibly maintain intracellular pH of GPC throughout all GP zones. This thesis has characterized various changes in volume and dimensions of living in situ GPC from PZ through to HZ of different GPs of postnatal rats. This work emphasized the importance of fixative osmolarity in order to accurately preserve the normal volume/morphology of cells within tissues. Most importantly, this thesis confirmed a potential role of the plasma membrane transporters, AE and NHE in GPC hypertrophy of growing bones

Kerangka pembentukan modul pengajaran bahasa al-Quran untuk masyarakat awam: The designing framework of Quranic language teaching module for the public

Pembelajaran bahasa Arab menerusi al-Quran telah mula mendapat tempat dalam kalangan masyarakat. Hal ini disebabkan oleh pengaruh media Islamik hari ini yang giat menyiarkan rancangan berbentuk pengajaran al-Quran, seperti tadabbur, tafsir serta siri bacaan al-Quran. Masyarakat awam memerlukan satu modul yang komprehensif dan selari dengan keperluan pembelajaran tersebut. Ini kerana masyarakat tidak terlepas daripada pendedahan terhadap bahasa Arab yang menjadi bahasa utama al-Quran dan Hadis. Tambahan pula, kesemua amal ibadah umat Islam tidak terlepas daripada penggunaan bahasa Arab, malah menjadi syarat sesuatu ibadah itu diterima oleh Allah SWT khususnya ibadah solat. Oleh itu pengkaji menggunakan kaedah rekabantuk ADDIE dan beberapa kaedah rekabantuk seperti modul Syeikh Abū Ḥassan al-Nadwī, modul Knowles dalam pembelajaran dewasa dan kaedah Pusar dalam menyediakan modul ini. Oleh itu, kajian ini akan membina kerangka sebuah modul pembelajaran bahasa Arab al-Quran dengan teknik yang menarik. Kajian ini menggunakan pendekatan baru, iaitu menerusi warna asas atau primer. Pembentukan modul ini juga mengandungi pendedahan asas kepada orang awam tentang hukum tatabahasa Arab yang terdapat di dalam al-Quran secara mudah. Pengkaji mencadangkan agar kajian terperinci bagi memudahkan orang awam memahami al-Quran menerusi bahasa Arab dapat digiatkan lagi usaha dan impaknya