Life as a Weapon: Making Sense of Suicide Bombings

This essay was originally published in Dialogue 29, 2 (2010) pp. 5‐9. Published here with the kind permission of the editors of Dialogue

The life and works of Sir William Jones

Chapter One; The Early Years. Jones's childhood, his schooling and character; to the age of twenty two. Chapter Two; Early Works. His developing interest in eastern literature; his first publications and early critical theory; taken to 1774. Chapter Three; Politics and the Law. His career as a politician and lawyer; taken to 1783. Chapter Four; Jurisprudence, translation and Poetry. His juridical writings; some aspects of his abilities as a translator and poet; from 1768 to 1785. Chapter Five: The first Years in India. His first years in India; outlook on the cultures, religions and peoples of India; attitude towards missions; discussion of his Hymns. Chapter Six; Sanskrit Studies. The beginnings of Sanskrit study; the hypothesis of a link between Indian and European languages; the translations from ancient Hindu writings; his works on anthropology and attempts to create a Hindu chronology. Chapter Seven; The Later years in India. Other important works undertaken during his stay in India; taken to 1794 and his death. Chapter Eight; His Literary Influence. Some aspects of his influence on the writers who followed, especially on Shelley, Coleridge, Southey and Tennyson

Australian Muslims: a demographic, social and economic profile of Muslims in Australia

AUSTRALIAN MUSLIMS: A BRIEF OVERVIEW: Contact between Muslim Indonesian fishermen from Southern Sulawesi and Indigenous people in northern Australia from around the 1750s is the earliest evidence of a Muslim connection in Australia. However, it was not until the 1860s with the arrival of Afghan cameleers that Muslims settled in greater numbers in Australia. At the peak of exploration and settlement of central Australia, around 3000 Afghans worked as camel drivers carting water and goods in the difficult terrain. Initially they were seen as very dependable and cheap labourers and they were employed in the public sector as well as by pastoralists in remote sheep stations. This led to friction between the traditional European bullock teamsters, popularly known as ‘bullockies’, and the Afghans. There were fatal shooting incidents between the two groups and at least one anti-Afghan league was formed in the Coolgardie region. With the end of the camel transport industry in the 1920s and the restrictive effects of the White Australia immigration policy, the number of Afghans dwindled. It was not until the policies that restricted the immigration of non-Europeans to Australia were dismantled in the late 1960s that Muslim migration resumed. In the postwar period, mainly due to migration from Turkey and Lebanon, the Muslim population increased markedly, rising to 200,885 in 1996. But it still comprised only 1.1% of the total population. The Muslim experience demonstrates the impact that political attitudes and the national policies they create can have upon people’s lives. The policies arising from the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 were based on the false notion of a relationship between ethnicity and standard of living. They wiped out the Australian Muslim community for nearly 70 years. It has only been since the change in national policy in the late 1960s that a Muslim community has been able to develop once again. In the past two decades the Muslim population has increased significantly due to immigration and natural increase. According to the 2011 Australian Census there were 476,290 Muslims in Australia, of whom about 40% were Australian born. The rest came from 183 countries, making Australian Muslims one of the most ethnically and nationally heterogeneous religious communities

The Relationship among Overconfidence, Economic Expectation, Social Factors and Investment Decision Making Behavior with the Mediating and Moderating Effects

The current study investigates the relationship among the overconfidence (OVC), economic expectations (EE), social factors (SOF) and investment decision making behavior (IDMB) with the mediating and moderating effect. The data was collected from the investors of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) that were selected through convenience sampling technique. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) showed that OVC, EE, SOF have a positive and significant relationship with IDMB. On the other hand, OVC, EE, SOF also has a positive and significant relationship with the information search (IS) while IS did not have direct effect on the IDMC. In other words, the IS also did not have mediating effect among the relationship of OVC, EE, SOF and IDMB. The indirect effect further indicated that financial literacy (FL) has a significant moderating effect among the relationship of OVC, EE, SOF and IDMC. Therefore, this moderating effect could be considered a contributions of the study. The research limitations and future directions had also discussed at the end of the study

On Being Religious: A Study of Christian and Muslim Piety in Australia

Using the analytical framework developed by the Berkeley research program in religion and society, this paper investigates Christian and Muslim piety in Australia. The findings reveal significant differences in the level of religiosity between samples of practicing Australian Christians and Muslims in all dimensions of religiosity. Muslims are more orthodox in their religious beliefs, ritually more engaged and devoted. One of the most notable ways in which the two groups differ is their experience of the Divine. Sociological insights of Emile Durkheim and Mary Douglas's sociology of religion are used to explain these differences and their implications

Gaussian mixture model based probabilistic modeling of images for medical image segmentation

In this paper, we propose a novel image segmentation algorithm that is based on the probability distributions of the object and background. It uses the variational level sets formulation with a novel region based term in addition to the edge-based term giving a complementary functional, that can potentially result in a robust segmentation of the images. The main theme of the method is that in most of the medical imaging scenarios, the objects are characterized by some typical characteristics such a color, texture, etc. Consequently, an image can be modeled as a Gaussian mixture of distributions corresponding to the object and background. During the procedure of curve evolution, a novel term is incorporated in the segmentation framework which is based on the maximization of the distance between the GMM corresponding to the object and background. The maximization of this distance using differential calculus potentially leads to the desired segmentation results. The proposed method has been used for segmenting images from three distinct imaging modalities i.e. magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), dermoscopy and chromoendoscopy. Experiments show the effectiveness of the proposed method giving better qualitative and quantitative results when compared with the current state-of-the-art. INDEX TERMS Gaussian Mixture Model, Level Sets, Active Contours, Biomedical Engineerin

Provider cost analysis supports results-based contracting out of maternal and newborn health services: an evidence-based policy perspective

Background There is dearth of evidence on provider cost of contracted out services particularly for Maternal and Newborn Health (MNH). The evidence base is weak for policy makers to estimate resources required for scaling up contracting. This paper ascertains provider unit costs and expenditure distribution at contracted out government primary health centers to inform the development of optimal resource envelopes for contracting out MNH services. Methods This is a case study of provider costs of MNH services at two government Rural Health Centers (RHCs) contracted out to a non-governmental organization in Pakistan. It reports on four selected Basic Emergency Obstetrical and Newborn Care (BEmONC) services provided in one RHC and six Comprehensive Emergency Obstetrical and Newborn Care (CEmONC) services in the other. Data were collected using staff interviews and record review to compile resource inputs and service volumes, and analyzed using the CORE Plus tool. Unit costs are based on actual costs of MNH services and are calculated for actual volumes in 2011 and for volumes projected to meet need with optimal resource inputs. Results The unit costs per service for actual 2011 volumes at the BEmONC RHC were antenatal care (ANC) visit USD$18.78, normal delivery US$ 84.61, newborn care US$16.86 and a postnatal care (PNC) visit US$ 13.86; and at the CEmONC RHC were ANC visit US$45.50, Normal Delivery US$ 148.43, assisted delivery US$167.43, C-section US$ 183.34, Newborn Care US$41.07, and PNC visit US$ 27.34. The unit costs for the projected volumes needed were lower due to optimal utilization of resources. The percentage distribution of expenditures at both RHCs was largest for salaries of technical staff, followed by salaries of administrative staff, and then operating costs, medicines, medical and diagnostic supplies. Conclusions The unit costs of MNH services at the two contracted out government rural facilities remain higher than is optimal, primarily due to underutilization. Provider cost analysis using standard treatment guideline (STG) based service costing frameworks should be applied across a number of health facilities to calculate the cost of services and guide development of evidence based resource envelopes and performance based contracting

Airfoil's Aerodynamic Coefficients Prediction using Artificial Neural Network

Figuring out the right airfoil is a crucial step in the preliminary stage of any aerial vehicle design, as its shape directly affects the overall aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft or rotorcraft. Besides being a measure of performance, the aerodynamic coefficients are used to design additional subsystems such as a flight control system, or predict complex dynamic phenomena such as aeroelastic instability. The coefficients in question can either be obtained experimentally through wind tunnel testing or, depending upon the accuracy requirements, by numerically simulating the underlying fundamental equations of fluid dynamics. In this paper, the feasibility of applying Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to estimate the aerodynamic coefficients of differing airfoil geometries at varying Angle of Attack, Mach and Reynolds number is investigated. The ANNs are computational entities that have the ability to learn highly nonlinear spatial and temporal patterns. Therefore, they are increasingly being used to approximate complex real-world phenomenon. However, despite their significant breakthrough in the past few years, ANNs' spreading in the field of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is fairly recent, and many applications within this field remain unexplored. This study thus compares different network architectures and training datasets in an attempt to gain insight as to how the network perceives the given airfoil geometries, while producing an acceptable neuronal model for faster and easier prediction of lift, drag and moment coefficients in steady state, incompressible flow regimes. This data-driven method produces sufficiently accurate results, with the added benefit of saving high computational and experimental costs

Perioperative hemodynamic effects of dexmedetomidine as an adjuvant to 0.2% ropivacaine in ultrasonography guided interscalene brachial plexus block for elective shoulder arthroscopic surgeries under general anaesthesia: a prospective observational study

Background: Although an increasing number of anesthesiologists are using peripheral nerve catheters for postoperative analgesia, single shot blocks are still more common. Ropivacaine has become the most commonly used long-acting local anesthetic, and the duration of analgesia has been estimated to be 8 to 14 hours.Methods: The study was conducted from February 2020 to October 2021 after obtaining approval from the institutional ethics committee. The study was a prospective observational study.Results: Hemodynamic changes in patients who received dexmedetomidine in combination with Ropivacaine had a favorable reduction in both heart rate and blood pressure without causing any major side effect. Comparison of postoperative MAP (mmHg) in two groups at various intervals of time was observed and found to be statistically significant (p value of <0.05). Comparison of postoperative heart rate (beats/min) among two groups at various intervals of time was statistically significant (p value of <0.05).Conclusions: We can conclude that preoperative inter-scalene block given reduces the analgesic requirement intraoperatively as well postoperatively. And the hemodynamic changes in patients who received dexmedetomidine in combination with ropivacaine had a favorable reduction in both heart rate and blood pressure without causing any major side effect.