Diskurse des islamischen Feminismus

"Der Beitrag identifiziert verschiedene Diskurse innerhalb des islamischen Feminismus. Es wird gefragt, ob islamischer Feminismus dazu beiträgt, Frauenrechte zu stärken, und inwieweit er Frauen einen Zugang zur öffentlichen Sphäre und Autonomie in der privaten Sphäre ermöglicht. Es wird gezeigt, dass der islamische Feminismus einen positiven Einfluss auf die Förderung von Frauenrechten hat, und zwar nicht nur innerhalb islamischer Diskurse, sondern auch in nationalen und internationalen Institutionen. Dennoch trägt der islamisch-feministische Diskurs auch eine mögliche Gefahr für den Status von Frauen in muslimischen Gesellschaften in sich, da religiös motivierte Argumente gegen die UN-Konvention für Frauenrechte vorgebracht werden, sobald diese zum islamischen Recht der Scharia im Widerspruch steht." (Autorenreferat)"This article identifies different discourses within Islamic Feminism. The question is whether it contributes to the improvement of women's rights, and in how far it enables women to attain access to public space and autonomy in the private sphere. It will be argued that Islamic Feminism has a positive influence on the promotion of women's rights, not only within Islamic discourses and movements, but also in national and international institutions. However, the Islamic-feminist discourse also carries a potential danger for the status of women in Muslim societies, since religious arguments are being directed against the UN Convention for Women's Rights insofar as it contradicts the Islamic Sharia." (author's abstract

\u27Al-Mouled\u27 as a Cultural Greenway: A new developing tool in the Egyptian context

Egypt’s heritage is of worldwide interest and importance due to its continuity over a period of more than five thousand years. It encompasses various aspects of human civilization and represents a cultural as well as a natural heritage of national and international value. This wealth of archaeological sites, architecture, arts and folklore reflects the many stages of Egypt’s rich past, giving it the rich diversity that we see now. But, unfortunately, this context is deteriorating due to massive development trends, unplanned urban expansion, unclear planning strategies, lack of awareness of importance of landscape planning in conserving this context on both academic and practical levels and finally because it is being dealt with as isolated attributes, thus neglecting its spatial distribution, resulting in an absence of character and identity of place. Although the Egyptian government, represented by the Egyptian General Organization for Physical Planning and the United Nations Development Programme, is taking positive action in preparing new master plans for cities, these master plans are, unfortunately, falling under the same rules, thereby ignoring the natural and cultural contexts between one city and another, and with limited financial resources available for implementing the plans

The economic causes of the Egyptian revolution January 25, 2011

A growing number of recent studies on the Egyptian revolution attribute its beginning to a set of socio-economic and political factors. On the political side, explanations includes a) the persistent rule by terror for thirty years through the emergency law, b) the prohibition on political rights and civil freedoms and lack of free and fair elections, c) police brutality against activists– namely the case of Khaled Said) the wide spread corruption, e) the spread of virtual-opposition through social networking websites and the Arabic satellite, f) the success of the Tunisian revolution as a bloodless and fast change, the sacrifice of Mohammed Bouazizi, and finally the spread of wikileaks scandals that threw more mud over the regime\u27s face. . On the socio-economic side, the revolution is largely attributed to the rise of unemployment, inflation of food prices, low income and rising inequality, the lack of health services. In short, the revolution is explained by the increasing density and pervasiveness of social, economic and political grievances that culminated into an uncontrollable anger towards a diminishing legitimacy of Mubarak\u27s thirty-years-rule of the country. This was largely reflected in the main demands of the protestors to end Hosni Mubarak\u27s rule, end emergency law, freedom, social justice and human dignity. This paper suggests a growing significance of the economic motives of social and political change through highlighting the economic dimensions of Egypt before 25th January 2011. It reviews different indicators of the economic conditions in Egypt before the revolution, in a way to answer a main question, “what are the economic motives behind the 25th January revolution in Egypt?” The structural approach followed on this paper slightly touches on the Marxian conception of dependency– by which social, political and cultural structures are perceived as dependent on the economic super-structure. In this paper, these dimensions are seen as rather intertwined and mutually dependent on each other; the economic motives are only one face of a complex web of explanations that generate meaning and resonance to similar experiences elsewhere. Meanwhile, the structural approach is deemed suitable to a leaderless revolution, since it provides a set of ‘totalising\u27 factors that facilitate collective action on massive scales by creating a national narrative of the revolution. This paper is organized around eight sections that circumscribe the economic situation in Egypt; economic stagnation, income inequality and poverty levels, the demographic aspect–population size, unemployment, rise of food prices compared to income levels, education and market matching and wealth and gender gaps

Optimal Design of Photovoltaic, Biomass, Fuel Cell, Hydrogen Tank units and Electrolyzer hybrid system for a remote area in Egypt

In this paper, a new isolated hybrid system is simulated and analyzed to obtain the optimal sizing and meet the electricity demand with cost improvement for servicing a small remote area with a peak load of 420 kW. The major configuration of this hybrid system is Photovoltaic (PV) modules, Biomass gasifier (BG), Electrolyzer units, Hydrogen Tank units (HT), and Fuel Cell (FC) system. A recent optimization algorithm, namely Mayfly Optimization Algorithm (MOA) is utilized to ensure that all load demand is met at the lowest energy cost (EC) and minimize the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the proposed system. The MOA is selected as it collects the main merits of swarm intelligence and evolutionary algorithms; hence it has good convergence characteristics. To ensure the superiority of the selected MOA, the obtained results are compared with other well-known optimization algorithms, namely Sooty Tern Optimization Algorithm (STOA), Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA), and Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA). The results reveal that the suggested MOA achieves the best system design, achieving a stable convergence characteristic after 44 iterations. MOA yielded the best EC with 0.2106533 $/kWh, the net present cost (NPC) with 6,170,134$, the loss of power supply probability (LPSP) with 0.05993%, and GHG with 792.534 t/y

Effect of different polishing techniques on surface roughness and bacterial adhesion of three glass ionomer-based restorative materials : in vitro study

Although many reports concluded that polishing of glass ionomers is crucial for smoother surface and limiting the adhesion of cariogenic bacteria, there is no specific surface treatment protocol recommended. A novel material in the same category was released recently claimed to have surface smoothness comparable to resin composite and bacterial adhesion less than other types of glass ionomers. In this study, different polishing systems were tested with three glass ionomers one of them is the novel material to find the most appropriate polishing protocol. Objectives: To evaluate and compare the surface roughness and bacterial adhesion to resin modified glass ionomer, bioactive ionic resin and conventional glass ionomer restorative materials after different polishing protocols in vitro. The materials tested includes resin modified glass ionomer, bioactive ionic resin, and conventional glass ionomer. The polishing protocols were divided into four groups: group 1 = (Mylar matrix strips, Control), group 2 = (one-step, PoGo), group 3 = (two-step, Prisma Gloss) and group 4 = (three-step, Sof-Lex). From each material, eleven cylindrical specimens were prepared for each group according to the manufacturers? instructions. The surface roughness for all specimens was measured using atomic force microscope in tapping mode. the same specimens were subjected to bacterial adhesion testing after being coated with artificial saliva. Data were analyzed with two-way analysis of variance followed by Post hoc multiple comparisons. The highest Ra and S. mutans adhesion values were recorded for all materials in two-step group. The lowest Ra and S. mutans adhesion values were seen in one-step and three step groups. One-step polishing system was more effective and may be preferable for polishing of the three studied glass ionomer-based materials compared to two-step and three-step systems

In vitro marginal and internal adaptation of four different base materials used to elevate proximal dentin gingival margins

There is still debate about the most appropriate restorative material category to relocate the proximal deep cervical margins, thus, this study aimed to compare the marginal and internal adaptation of four base materials used for deep margin elevation, a

Calcium availability regulates antioxidant system, physio-biochemical activities and alleviates salinity stress mediated oxidative damage in soybean seedlings

Salinity is considered as one of the devastating abiotic stress factors and global climate change has further worsened the situation. Present experiments were aimed to evaluate the role of calcium (Ca) availability on growth and salinity tolerance mechanisms in soybean. Seedlings were grown with (2 mM Ca) and without Ca supplementation and modulation in key physiological and biochemical parameters were studied. Salinity (100 mM NaCl) stress resulted in growth reduction in terms of height and biomass accumulation, which was more pronounced in Ca-deficient plants. Relative to control (Ca deficient) and NaCl stressed plants, Ca supplemented seedlings exhibited higher relative water content, pigment synthesis and the photosynthetic efficiency. Ca availability affected the synthesis of proline, glycine betaine and soluble sugars under normal and saline growth conditions. Optimal Ca supplementation up-regulated the activities of antioxidant enzymes assayed and the contents of non-enzymatic antioxidants (ascorbate, glutathione, and tocopherol) thereby reflecting in amelioration of NaCl induced oxidative damage. Moreover, increased accumulation of phenols due to Ca supplementation and the amelioration of NaCl mediated decline if nitrate reductase activity was observed. More importantly, Ca availability reduced the accumulation of Na under control and NaCl stressed conditions restricting the damging effects on metabolism. Availability of optimal Ca potentially regulates the salinity tolerance mechanisms in soybean by maintaining osmoregulation and antioxidant metabolism

A probabilistic approach for pediatric epilepsy diagnosis using brain functional connectivity networks

Background The lives of half a million children in the United States are severely affected due to the alterations in their functional and mental abilities which epilepsy causes. This study aims to introduce a novel decision support system for the diagnosis of pediatric epilepsy based on scalp EEG data in a clinical environment. Methods A new time varying approach for constructing functional connectivity networks (FCNs) of 18 subjects (7 subjects from pediatric control (PC) group and 11 subjects from pediatric epilepsy (PE) group) is implemented by moving a window with overlap to split the EEG signals into a total of 445 multi-channel EEG segments (91 for PC and 354 for PE) and finding the hypothetical functional connectivity strengths among EEG channels. FCNs are then mapped into the form of undirected graphs and subjected to extraction of graph theory based features. An unsupervised labeling technique based on Gaussian mixtures model (GMM) is then used to delineate the pediatric epilepsy group from the control group. Results The study results show the existence of a statistically significant difference (p \u3c 0.0001) between the mean FCNs of PC and PE groups. The system was able to diagnose pediatric epilepsy subjects with the accuracy of 88.8% with 81.8% sensitivity and 100% specificity purely based on exploration of associations among brain cortical regions and without a priori knowledge of diagnosis. Conclusions The current study created the potential of diagnosing epilepsy without need for long EEG recording session and time-consuming visual inspection as conventionally employed

Diagnosing and managing diabetic somatic and autonomic neuropathy

The diagnosis and management of diabetic neuropathy can be a major challenge. Late diagnosis contributes to significant morbidity in the form of painful diabetic neuropathy, foot ulceration, amputation, and increased mortality. Both hyperglycaemia and cardiovascular risk factors are implicated in the development of somatic and autonomic neuropathy and an improvement in these risk factors can reduce their rate of development and progression. There are currently no US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved disease-modifying treatments for either somatic or autonomic neuropathy, as a consequence of multiple failed phase III clinical trials. While this may be partly attributed to premature translation, there are major shortcomings in trial design and outcome measures. There are a limited number of partially effective FDA-approved treatments for the symptomatic relief of painful diabetic neuropathy and autonomic neuropathy