Unsettling: On Palestinian Quaker Theology

In this essay, I will reflect on the remarks I shared in January 2022 on the “Decolonizing the Quaker Peace Testimony” panel of the Quaker Theological Discussion Group and in July 2022 on the “Invoking Unsettling” plenary of the Friends General Conference. Unsettling has many different meanings and layers, whether it is thinking about unsettling settler colonialism or in unsettling some of our assumptions that we may not be comfortable grappling with. Settler colonialism has unfolded all over the world and unfortunately it continues in the present, not just in the United States. For me, the context of Palestine/Israel hits very close to home given that I grew up in occupied Palestine and now live in the settler colony of the United States. Many scholars recognize the settler colonial realities that Palestinians have endured for over seven decades now. The heart of the issue is the Ashkenazi/European/white Zionist colonial policies that have been manifesting in Palestine ever since the establishment of Israel in 1948. Palestinians identify parallel struggles with indigenous communities all over the world. Settler colonialism has different dimensions, including the political, economic, social, cultural, religious, and psychological. Trauma from settler colonialism is inherited over generations and it is even imprinted in peoples’ DNA.1 But we also have to remember that in addition to the suffering caused by settler colonialism, indigenous communities around the globe are also tremendously resilient. How do Quakers respond to settler colonialism? Do we need to decolonize our peace testimony? Let me share a few disclaimers before I address these questions. Even though I approach these issues as a theist Friend, I recognize the presence and importance of nontheist Friends in our Quaker communities. I appreciate very deeply the fact that our tradition is so open and there are many different types of Friends, including nontheists. Their voices matter in Quaker world-making. There are also individuals who identify as Jewish Quakers, Muslim Quakers, Buddhist Quakers, and other variations, and so not all Quakers revolve around Christianity. I recognize that Christianity for many people was a tool, and continues to be an instrument, for colonialism, imperialism, erasure of identity, and even cultural genocide. If we want to decolonize our faith, practice, and traditions, and think about the global community of Quakers, we also need to recognize that the majority of Quakers are people of color around the world.2 For most Quakers, Christianity is an essential part of their Quakerism, and so having an open tent approach to Quaker theology and practice is warranted.3 For instance, in my case, as a former member of Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting, and now as a member of Atlanta Friends Meeting, I appreciate that I am in an unprogrammed meeting and that we do not have religious symbols in our worship spaces. That is important to me and helps me ground myself spiritually. At the same time, the cross for me, personally, is a source of comfort. I know that such symbols are triggering in many ways for a lot of people and I completely understand and respect their needs. Yet these symbols do have immense spiritual value for many others. My purpose in this essay is to make two major interventions. The first is for us to think about unsettling and decolonization as a praxis. And the second is to emphasize the value of deep listening to the voices of Quakers in Palestine—and the Palestinian Christian community more broadly–and how that can enrich our understanding of unsettling

A Fuzzy Based Approach for New Product Concept Evaluation and Selection

Product developers make many decisions during the early stages of product development which have a profound impact on the final cost of the product. These decisions include selecting a product concept that best meet customer needs.  Product concept selection involves using the collective knowledge of many experts who possess different backgrounds and expertise in various fields to evaluate a set of product concepts developed to meet certain customer needs. This paper proposes a concept evaluation and selection methodology capable of capturing the fuzziness and vagueness impeded in concept evaluation. The proposed methodology integrates the Weighted Concept Selection Matrix with the Analytical Hierarchal Process (AHP) under a Fuzzy environment. The developed methodology has the capability of capturing the fuzziness and vagueness in the concept evaluators’ ratings. The methodology consists of eight steps that begins with retrieving the product concepts, developing the evaluation criteria and selecting the evaluators, and ends up by choosing the best concept. The criteria are prioritized and assigned fuzzy weights according to their importance with respect to the nature of the product and based on the capabilities of the manufacturing company.  Furthermore, the evaluators are prioritized and assigned fuzzy weights with respect to the criteria based on their different backgrounds. These weights are aggregated with the concepts’ fuzzy rating done by the evaluators in order to compute a final score for each concept. The usage of the methodology is verified and tested by using an illustrative example. Keywords: Product Design, Fuzzy systems, Multi-criteria Decision Making, Analytical Hierarchal Proces

Sortierbobby – Der Sortierroboter

Schon seit 2013 findet jedes Jahr das Projektseminar der Fakult¨at Elektrotechnik/Informationstechnik statt. Ziel ist, einen Roboter mithlife der LEGO-Bausteine zu bauen und mittels MATLAB zu programmieren. Roboter spielen heutzutage eine große Rolle im Leben. Sie k¨onnen viele Aufgaben ¨ubernemen, die die Menschen wegen ihrer Gefahr wie z.B. Entsch¨arfen von Bomben nicht erledigen k¨onnen. Dieses Paper befasst sich mit einem Roboter, der die Farben von Objekten erkennt und an die richtige Stelle bringt (je nach Farbe). Außerdem wird noch erw¨ahnt, wie der Roboter gebaut und anschließend programmiert wurde

Global cocaine intoxication research trends during 1975–2015: a bibliometric analysis of Web of Science publications

Density view of terms map based on the co-occurrence matrix of terms from text data in the title and abstract of retrieved publications related to cocaine toxicity by periods. Figure S1. Density view of terms map in Period I (1975–1995); colors show the density of relevance, sorting from blue (lowest density) to red (highest density). (number of publications related to cocaine intoxication = 954). Figure S2. Density view of terms map in Period II (1996–2005); colors show the density of relevance, sorting from blue (lowest density) to red (highest density). (Number of publications related to cocaine intoxication = 987). Figure S3. Density view of terms map in Period III (2006–2015); colors show the density of relevance, sorting from blue (lowest density) to red (highest density). (Number of publications related to cocaine intoxication = 961). Figure S4. Density view of terms map in Period 1975–1995; colors show the density of relevance, sorting from blue (lowest density) to red (highest density). (Number of publications related to cocaine intoxication = 2,902). (DOCX 794 kb

Bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: research activity in Arab countries

BACKGROUND: Chronic respiratory diseases, like bronchial asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are a worldwide health problem. Quantitative and qualitative assessment of asthma and COPD-related research from Arab countries has not been explored and there are few internationally published reports on such field. The main objectives of this study were to analyze research output originating from Arab countries in the field of bronchial asthma and COPD. METHODS: Original scientific articles or reviews published from the 22 Arab countries were screened using specific words pertaining to asthma and COPD using Scopus database and search engine. Research productivity was evaluated based on: (a) total and trends of contribution of each Arab country to asthma and COPD research and (b) journals in which researchers from Arab countries published their research. RESULTS: The total number of original research and review articles published globally about bronchial asthma and COPD was 163,964. The leading country in bronchial asthma and COPD research was United States of America (38,632; 23.56%). Worldwide, Turkey ranked 19th while Israel and Iran ranked 25th and 29th respectively. Among Arab countries, Egypt and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia came on positions 39th and 43rd, respectively. A total of 1,304 documents about bronchial asthma and COPD were published from Arab countries which represents 0.8% of the global research output. Research in bronchial asthma was almost double that in COPD. Research from Arab countries was low and showed a significant increase after 2000. Approximately 12% of research activity in asthma and COPD from Arab countries was published in Saudi Medical Journal, Annals of Saudi Medicine, Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal and Tunisie Medicale. Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with a total publication of 353 (27.07%) ranked first among the Arab countries while University of Kuwait was the most productive institution with a total of 123 (9.43%) documents. CONCLUSIONS: The present data showed relatively low research productivity about bronchial asthma and COPD in Arab countries. Research output can be improved by investing more in international and national collaborative research projects in the field of asthma and COPD

معوقات التمكين التكنولوجي في المدارس الثانوية التابعة لمديرية تربية الزرقاء الأولى من وجهة نظر المعلمين Obstacles of Technology Empowerment in Secondary Schools of the First Zarqa Education Directorate from Teacher’s Points of View

Abstract This study aimed at identifying the obstacles of technology empowerment in the secondary schools of First Zarqa Education Directorate as seen by teachers. It also aimed at identifying the effects of the variables (gender, academic degree and years of experience) in this concern. The researcher employed the descriptive survey method. The study sample was chosen by the simple random manner, which comprised (297) male and female teachers. To achieve the objectives of the study, the study instrument was constructed consisting of (44) items distributed over three domains. The validity and reliability of the instrument were verified. The results showed that the level of the obstacles of technology empowerment in the secondary schools of First Zarqa Education Directorate, as seen by the teachers, was medium for all the domains. The domain of obstacles related to the technological infrastructure ranked first, followed by obstacles related to the school management in the second rank. Obstacles related to the teachers came third and last. In addition, the results showed statistically significant differences due to the effect of gender on the obstacles of the technology empowerment in the secondary schools of First Zarqa Education Directorate, as viewed by the teachers, and were in favor of the female teachers. Furthermore, the results did not show statistically significant differences attributed to academic degree and years of experience variables. The study recommended updating all the systems, means, and technological software in the school to contribute intaking pace with the most important developments in the field of employing technology in education

Osteoporosis is a neglected health priority in Arab World: a comparative bibliometric analysis

Osteoporosis is an important health problem with serious consequences. Evaluation of osteoporosis scientific output from Arab countries has not been explored and there are few internationally published reports on research activity about osteoporosis. The main objectives of this study were to analyze the research output originating from Arab countries and 3 Middle Eastern non-Arab countries, particularly Israel, Turkey and Iran in the field of osteoporosis. Original scientific articles or reviews published from the 21 Arab countries, Israel, Turkey and Iran about “osteoporosis” were screened using the ISI Web of Science database. The time frame for the result was up to year 2012. The total number of original and review research articles published globally about osteoporosis was 43,571. The leading country in osteoporosis research was United States of America (14,734; 33.82%). Worldwide, Turkey ranked 16th while Israel and Iran ranked 24th and 31st respectively. Among Arab countries, Egypt and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia came on positions 41 and 45 respectively. A total of 426 documents about “osteoporosis” were published from Arab countries which represents 0.98% of the global research output. Research about osteoporosis from Arab countries was very low until 2002 and then increased steadily. The total number of citations for osteoporosis documents from the Arab world was 5551 with an average citation of 13.03 per document and an h- index of 35. Thirty (7.04%) documents published from Arab countries about osteoporosis were published in Saudi Medical Journal. Egypt, with a total publication of 117 (27.47%) ranked first among the Arab countries in research about osteoporosis while American University in Beirut was the most productive institution with a total of 47 (11.03%) documents. Compared with other non-Arab countries in the Middle East, the research productivity from the Arab countries was lesser than that from Turkey and Israel but higher than that from Iran. The present data showed low research productivity in osteoporosis field in Arab countries. Research output can be improved by investing in more international and national collaborative research projects in the field of osteoporosis

Inventory of Non-Timber Species in Ayer Hitam Utara Forest Reserve, Johor

Ayer Hitam Utara Forest Reserve (AHUFR) is one of the permanent reserved forests (PRFs) in Johor, which is consisted of lowland and peat swamp ecosystems. In AHUFR, there has been little progress in the study of non-timber species. Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are forest products other than timber that are obtained from both plants and animals and are vital to all species, including people. Among the objectives of this research project were the creation of a checklist of non-timber species in the AHUFR, the identification of non-timber species in the forest reserve, and the measurement of the diversity of non-timber species in the forest reserve. Survey was conducted in 10m × 5m quadrats, in which three quadrats were established in two different ecosystems, namely site A (lowland forest) and site B (peat swamp). The preliminary study documented 92 individuals from 19 families and 33 species of non-timber plants. Melastomataceae was the most dominant family, whilst Clidemia hirta (L.) D.Don was the most dominant species. Based on the Shannon-Wiener and Margalef indices, lowland forest indicated higher diversity of non-timber species compared to peat swamp forest

Anomaly Detection in Liquid Pipelines Using Modeling, Co-Simulation and Dynamical Estimation

Part 3: Infrastructure Security International audience Historically, supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems have relied on obscurity to safeguard against attacks. Indeed, external attackers lacked knowledge about proprietary system designs and software to access systems and execute attacks. The trend to interconnect to the Internet and incorporate standardized protocols, however, has resulted in an increase in the attack surface attackers can now target SCADA systems and proceed to impact the physical systems they control. Dynamical estimation can be used to identify anomalies and attempts to maliciously affect controlled physical systems. This paper describes an intrusion detection method based on the dynamical estimation of systems. A generic water pipeline system is modeled using state space equations, and a discrete-time Kalman filter is used to estimate operational characteristics for anomaly-based intrusion detection. The effectiveness of the method is evaluated against deception attacks that target the water pipeline system. A co-simulation that integrates computational fluid dynamics software and MATLAB/Simulink is employed to simulate attacks and develop detection schemes. Document type: Part of book or chapter of boo

NuMDG: A New Tool for Multiway Decision Graphs Construction

Multiway Decision Graphs (MDGs) are a canonical representation of a subset of many-sorted first-order logic. This subset generalizes the logic of equality with abstract types and uninterpreted function symbols. The distinction between abstract and concrete sorts mirrors the hardware distinction between data path and control. Here we consider ways to improve MDGs construction. Efficiency is achieved through the use of the Generalized-If-Then-Else (GITE) commonly operator in Binary Decision Diagram packages. Consequently, we review the main algorithms used for MDGs verification techniques. In particular, Relational Product and Pruning by Subsumption are algorithms defined uniformly through this single GITE operator which will lead to a more efficient implementation. Moreover, we provide their correctness proof. This work can be viewed as a way to accommodate the ROBBD algorithms to the realm of abstract sorts and uninterpreted functions. The new tool, called NuMDG, accepts an extended SMV language, supporting abstract data sorts. Finally, we present experimental results demonstrating the efficiency of the NuMDG tool and evaluating its performance using a set of benchmarks from the SMV package