Islam and the Muslims in the Anglo-American Literary Tradition: The Historical Roots and the Reiterations

The relationship between Islam and the West was first troubled by biblical texts pejorative of the Arabs, and the rise of Islam in the seventh century aggravated this negative view of Arabs and Muslims. Although the brilliant Muslim civilization in Spain mitigated this negative image, Western fears of Europe’s Latin Christianity being caught by the pincer of Muslim Spain in the West and Levantine Islam from the East gave rise to the Crusades that sought to drive a wedge between the two flanks of Islam by seizing the Holy Land and thereby neutralizing the Islamic threat. The Crusades, virulent religious wars spanning two centuries, gave rise to reviling images of Islam and its prophet which persisted for two more centuries, only to be aggravated still further by the dreaded Turkish threat. A respite came with growing trade links between Europe and the Levantine provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Wealth accruing from sound, effective trade agreements with the alien Ottoman power facilitated a more open-minded outlook. Mutual material benefits led to a more respectful understanding of the dreaded Muslim adversary and a growing interest in its heritage. Thus, mutual material interest, based on equity, forms a sound basis for Western–Islamic understanding. Momentary, localized disruptive factors should not be allowed to ruffle a would-be strategic, long-term understanding between the two sides, or cancel present, past or future improvements in relations. The Crusades arose, we are told, because of Christian pilgrims falling victim to local bandits who infested the Holy Land due to a local breakdown in government. American reiterations of Medieval European polemics against Islam arose from feelings running high due to the Barbary Wars

Kompetensi Pedagogik, Motivasi Kerja, dan Kurikulum terhadap Kinerja Guru

ABSTRAKPenelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji dan menganalisis efek moderating kebijakan dividendalam pengaruh keputusan investasi terhadap nilai perusahaan pada Perusahaan Islamic IndexIndonesia (JII) yang tedaftar di Bursa Efek Indonesia. Sampel dalam penelitian ini yaituperusahaan yang terdaftar secara konsisten selama lima tahun terakhir yakni 2012-2016 diJakarta Islamic Index pada Bursa Efek Indonesia yaitu sebanyak empat belas (14) perusahaan.Adapun teknik analisis data dengan menggunakan moderated regression analysis. Hasilpenelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa keputusan investasi tidak berpengaruh signifikan terhadapkebijakan dividen. Kebijakan dividen tidak berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kebijakan dividen.Serta kebijakan dividen tidak mampu memoderasi hubungan antara keputusan investasidengan nilai perusahaan.Kata Kunci: Keputusan Investasi, Kebijakan Dividen, Nilai Perusahaa

Designing Efficient Taxi Pickup Operations at Airports

This paper provides a practical procedure for designing efficient taxi pickup operations at airports. How to do this effectively is an open question. Solutions are not available, and practices vary. They reflect different approaches to and lack of research on the subject. The solutions are often unsatisfactory. At many airports, passengers routinely suffer long waits outdoors, exposed to the elements, after a tiring journey. Such disagreeable experiences are avoidable. Designing efficient taxi pickup operations at airports is problematic. The peculiarities of the process preclude easy solutions. First, the process involves queuing, so system performance is a nonlinear function of the loads. Second, it features unstable transient situations, since travelers typically arrive in bulk over short periods. Third, traffic is significantly differentiated and consists of a wide variety of groups implying different service characteristics. Standard results from queuing theory thus do not have a useful application to this problem. The design process uses simulation that is based on detailed observation of local practices. It involves four steps: (a) detailed local measurements of the arrival of both travelers and taxis, and the service rates provided by taxis in different queuing positions; (b) creation and validation of a simulation model sufficiently detailed to account for these realities; (c) exploration of design alternatives to estimate the characteristics of the service they would provide; and (d) selection of a preferred design that properly balances efforts to minimize average and extreme wait times. The paper demonstrates the procedure through application to Lisbon International Airport, Portugal.SIMUL8 Corporatio

A methodology for planning and operations management of airport passenger terminals: a capacity/level of service approach

A methodology is presented herewith to assist in the systematic evaluation of operational conditions of the vital and dynamic processing facilities of airport terminals, which could enhance planning and management practices adopted for airports. The methodology focusses on the relation between capacity of individual facilities and levels of service that passengers experience in them, whereby important operational aspects of those facilities are examined and analysed. The developed methodology consists of two main parts: Capacity procedure, and Level of Service procedure. The first establishes the relations (Performance models) between demand levels (flows) that may possibly be accommodated by individual facilities, and some service measures of particular relevance to passengers that could be used to assess the performance of facilities when subjected to various demand levels. To accomplish this, simulation techniques are utilized to synthesize required information. In the second, the way by which a framework of service standards could be established is presented. Levels of service are derived by asking passengers (through appropriate surveys) to assess service standards based upon their perception to service conditions at a particular time, and their response to different variations of service resulting at different demand levels. Through this method, Perception-Response models are derived, where they are used in the case studies conducted, to delineate the levels of service for processing facilities of the airport terminal considered

Interactive Airport Landside Simulation: an Object-Oriented Approach

This paper intends to explore the different aspects in the design and implementation of an airport land side simulation model. Major features and properties of objects in the objects-oriented programming environment are discussed and related to the simulation environment with an attempt to find analogues between the two, to represent the airport landside environment in an object oriented environment. The preliminary effort using an object-oriented approach to design and implement a simulation environment is presented and discusse