Islamization of Contemporary Architecture: Shifting the Paradigm of Islamic Architecture

Islamic architecture is often thought as a history course and thus finds its material limited to the cataloguing and studying of legacies of successive empires or various geographic regions of the Islamic world. In practice, adherent professionals tend to reproduce high styles such as Umayyad, Abassid, Fatimid, Ottoman, etc., or recycle well known elements such as the minarets, courtyards, and mashrabiyyahs. This approach, endorsed by the present comprehensive Islamic revival, is believed to be the way to defend and revitalize the identity of Muslim societies that was initially affected by colonization and now is being offended by globalization. However, this approach often clashes with the contemporary trends in architecture that do not necessarily oppose the essence of Islamic architecture. Furthermore, it sometimes lead to an erroneous belief that consists of relating a priori forms to Islam and that clashes with the timeless and universal character of the Islamic religion. The key question to be asked then is, beyond this historicist view, what would be an “Islamic architec-ture” of nowadays that originates from the essence of Islam and that responds to contemporary conditions, needs, aspirations of present Muslim societies and individuals. To what extends can Islamic architecture bene-fits from modern progress and contemporary thought in resurrecting itself without loosing its essence. The hypothesis of the study is that, just as early Muslim architecture started from the adoption, use and re-use of early pre-Islamic architectures before reaching originality, this process, called Islamization, could also take place nowadays with the contemporary thought that is mostly developed in Western and non-Islamic environ-ments. Mechanisms in Islam that allowed the “absorption” of pre-existing civilizations should thus structure the islamization approach and serve the scholars and professionals to reach the new Islamic architecture. The objectives of the paper consist of counter-criticizing orientalists' views that overwhelm our libraries and references systems, and that consider the first stage of Islamic civilization, within which architecture is part, as a mere cut-and-paste process and, at best, a synthesis of these pre-Islamic heritages, and overcoming the prevailing historicist approach, and open new scopes for future generations to instate a new era of islamization that permits digesting the contemporary Western thoughts in a conscious, critical, and constructive way

A survey on drug related problems in cervical cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria

A drug-related problem (DRP) is an event or circumstance involving drug therapy that actually or potentially interferes with desired outcome. The complexities in drug regimens used in cervical cancer chemotherapy has led to more serious problems. The aim of this study is to investigate DRPs in cervical cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The study was a retrospective cross sectional study on patients receiving cervical cancer chemotherapy at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria (ABUTH). Patients’ medication charts were reviewed from July, 2015 to June, 2016. Data were collected using the Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe (PCNE) Classification of DRP V 6.20. A total of 224 DRPs cases were identified from 65 cervical cancer patients. The DRPs were mostly on treatment effectiveness (28.1%), adverse reaction (29.0%), and cost (26.8%), while the causes were majorly drug selection (28.1%) and dose selection (29.0%). The risk factors for the DRPs were found to be comorbidities and polypharmacy. In conclusion, DRPs were common among cervical cancer patients receiving chemotherapy at ABUTH. Pharmacist interventions to achieve a better therapeutic outcome are necessary.Keywords: Cervical cancer, chemotherapy, drug related problem, pharmacist, polypharmac

Spot deformation and replication in the two-dimensional Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction in water-in-oil microemulsion

In the limit of large diffusivity ratio, spot-like solutions in the two-dimensional Belousov-Zhabotinski reaction in water-in-oil microemulsion are studied. It is shown analytically that such spots undergo an instability as the diffusivity ratio is decreased. An instability threshold is derived. For spots of small radius, it is shown that this instability leads to a spot splitting into precisely two spots. For larger spots, it leads to deformation, fingering patterns and space-filling curves. Numerical simulations are shown to be in close agreement with the analytical predictions.Comment: To appear, PR

IN VITRO EFFECT OF ACETYLSALICYLIC ACID ON CALCIUM OXALATE CRYSTALLIZATION: AN APPROACH TO ANTILITHIASIS

Objective: In recent years, significant progress has been made in identifying and counting physico-chemical processes involved in urinary stone formation. The ability of urine to inhibit calcium oxalate crystallization is considered an important mechanism against stone formation. Several natural substances were tested to inhibit calcium oxalate crystallization. In the present study, we evaluate the effects of acetylsalicylic acid, also known as Aspirin, as an inhibitor of calcium oxalate crystallization in vitro.Methods: The nucleation and aggregation of calcium oxalate crystals were studied using turbidimetric 400-sec time course measurements of optic density at 620 nm after mixing solutions containing calcium chloride and sodium oxalate at room temperature, pH 5.7. The formation of crystals is induced by the addition of the oxalate to calcium solution. The effects on calcium oxalate crystal growth of acetylsalicylic acid with various concentrations were examined. The maximum increase of optic density in the course of time reflects maximum rate of formation of new particles. After reaching equilibrium, a progressive decrease of optic density with time is observed. Rate of aggregation is derived from the maximum decrease in optic density.Results: The results showed that if a concentration of acetylsalicylic acid is more than 1,66 mM both rate of formations of new particles and Rate of aggregation decreased (P<0.05).Conclusion: acetylsalicylic acid has a significant effect on nucleation as well as on crystal growth stage; consequently, it inhibits the crystal formation of calcium oxalate urinary lithiasis. Â

Efficiency of Wastewater Treatment System and Its Use for Irrigation - A Case Study of a private University in Ghana

The reuse or utilization of treated wastewater for irrigation is conventionally considered as a means of mitigating water shortage or abating water pollution. Wastewater treatment plants designed for reuse in irrigation are more appropriate for developing countries striving to enhance access to improved sanitation. It is well known that successive stages of treatment of sewage effluent reduces the quantity of suspended solids, organic matter and nutrient load, bacteria population as well as biological oxygen demand to the extent that the final treated effluent contains virtually a small fraction compared to the influent sewage. A short-term assessment of the decentralised reuse-oriented effluent system of a private University (in Ghana) was carried out to determine its effluent quality for the purpose of irrigating its landscape. The investigation showed that Total Coliform, E. coli and Vibrio spp. were significantly reduced, through the treatment stages, but not to within Internationally accepted guideline values. Salmonella spp. was not significantly reduced. Physical parameters, nutrients as well as biological oxygen demand did not show any variation along the treatment stages. Suspended solids, optimum temperature and pH were identified as contributing to treatment inefficiency of the plant. It is therefore recommended the treated wastewater, prior to disinfection, should be filtered to reduce suspended solids. This will enhance effective chlorination and by extension, significantly reduce bacteria population. Furthermore Regular monitoring and laboratory analysis of the recycled effluent from the plant should be carried out by the EPA or other professional organisation to ensure compliance. Keywords: Reuse, Wastewater, Irrigation, Chlorinatio

On Radical Groups of Permutation Groups

In this paper a new theorem has been stated and proved concerning the radical group of permutation groups. Symmetric groups, alternating groups, dihedral groups and groups generated by semidirect products of two permutation groups have been considered in the research being them as permutation groups

On Sylow Subgroups of Permutation Groups

A research on Sylow Subgroups of permutation groups is carried out in this paper. The research investigates the nature of Sylow subgroups of permutation groups and examines its behaviors

Developed Adomian method for quadratic Kaluza-Klein relativity

We develop and modify the Adomian decomposition method (ADecM) to work for a new type of nonlinear matrix differential equations (MDE's) which arise in general relativity (GR) and possibly in other applications. The approach consists in modifying both the ADecM linear operator with highest order derivative and ADecM polynomials. We specialize in the case of a 4$\times$4 nonlinear MDE along with a scalar one describing stationary cylindrically symmetric metrics in quadratic 5-dimensional GR, derive some of their properties using ADecM and construct the \textit{most general unique power series solutions}. However, because of the constraint imposed on the MDE by the scalar one, the series solutions terminate in closed forms exhausting all possible solutions.Comment: 17 pages (minor changes in reference [30]