Persian Gulf in the Soviet perceptions : a case study of the Ba'thist Iraq (1968-1975)

his sub-thesis studies Soviet policy towards the Ba'thist Iraq. Basically, it is a recapitulation of the Iraqi scene which offered, or denied, opportunities to the USSR during the period 1968-75. It sets out the context, as projected by Soviet media, within which the Soviet policy operated. Without undertaking an exhaustive treatment of the nature, or evolution of, Soviet relations with Iraq, this subthesis attempts to outline the Soviet perception of the following three inter-related problems of the area directly involving Iraq and, subsequently, affecting development of the Soviet policy: a. formation of a ‘united front' of all 'progressive' forces of the Ba'thist Iraq. b. resolution of the 'nationalities question' of autonomy/separation seeking Kurds. c. promotion of friendlier relations of Iraq with the neighbouring Iran. In other words, this sub-thesis will project and explain the nature of Moscow's pattern of interaction with Iraq and its governing logic in the regional context. Instead of undertaking a country to country approach, Iraq was selected, arbitrarily, for the purpose of this research. It was done, because Iraq was, Kremlin believed, the only country of the area which "on the whole” was striving for socialist construction and following the non-capitalist path of development and had all the aforesaid problems on its agenda. Thus, the study of the Ba'thist Iraq provided us with a unique example where the Soviet response towards these three dimensions of political process could be seen progressing simultaneously. Hence, it was held imperative to delimit ourselves to the post-68 Ba'thist Iraq

Challenges of Islamic Education in the Changing World

Islamic education, deeply rooted in the teachings of Islam, has evolved over centuries to cater to the spiritual, moral, intellectual, and societal needs of Muslims. This article explores the historical foundations of Islamic education, its core objectives, and the challenges it faces in the modern era. The challenges include striking a balance between tradition and modernization, addressing gender equity, promoting critical thinking, countering extremism, and integrating technology. The recommendations presented emphasize curricular reform, teacher training, quality assurance, and the incorporation of critical thinking and digital integration. The conclusion underscores the dynamic nature of Islamic education, emphasizing its role in shaping well-rounded individuals who are rooted in their faith while navigating contemporary realities. The continued collaboration among educators, scholars, and community leaders is essential to ensure that Islamic education remains a transformative force for future generations of Muslims. Keywords: Islamic education, Muslim communities, Challenge

The Trend, Style and Types of Qur’ānic Exegesis in Modern Times

After the revelation of the Qur’ān, there are different languages depending on the time and place. The series of explanations and interpretations have been going on which has helped the Muslim Ummah in understanding and act upon the Qur’ānic teachings. The first stage is the era of the Prophet, the second stage is the era of the Companions, the third stage is the era of the followers and the fourth stage is the era of the followers. The trend is a clear path which commentator sets for himself in the interpretation of the Holy Qur'ān is his method. The ideas and thoughts of the commentator play a fundamental role in a commentary. It is as the clear path that the commentator sets for himself in the interpretation of the Holy Qur’an is his Manhāj. The ideas and thoughts of the commentator play an essential role in this context. In this article the commentaries of modern times have been discussed under Style, Types, Manhaj and trends. There are many commentaries have been represents the modern style. Among them  Tafsı̇̄r Tadabur Qur’ān Amin Ahsan Isl┐h┘, Tafsı̇̄r Zia-ul-Qur’ān by P┘r Karam Shah Al-Azhar┘, Matalib-al-Furq┐n by Ghulam Ahmad Pervez, Tafsı̇̄r-al-Bayan by Javed Ahmad Ghamd┘ have been prominent in this respect. Keywords: Tends, Types, Style of Qur’ānic Exegesi

EFFECT OF THE STACKING SEQUENCE ON THE IMPACT RESPONSE OF CARBON-GLASS/EPOXY HYBRID COMPOSITES

This paper investigates low-velocity impact response of Quasi Isotropic (QI) hybrid carbon/glass fiber reinforced polymer composites with alternate stacking sequences. Cross-ply woven carbon and glass fibers were used as reinforcing materials to fabricate sandwiched and interlayer hybrid composites. For comparison, the laminates containing only-carbon and only-glass fibers were also studied. Drop weight test was used to impact the samples. The images captured by a normal camera demonstrated that localized damages (delamination) existed within plies. The hybrid laminates had smaller load drops, smaller maximum deflection, and higher maximum load compared to the single fiber laminates. In addition, carbon outside interlayer hybrid laminate showed the highest maximum load and energy absorption, showing the significant dependence of the impact performance on hybridization and stacking sequence. It was concluded that a hybrid composite would help improve impact performance of laminated composites compared to non-hybrid composites if they are properly designed

Nutrient strengthening and lead alleviation in Brassica Napus L. by foliar ZnO and TiO2-NPs modulating antioxidant system, improving photosynthetic efficiency and reducing lead uptake.

With the anticipated foliar application of nanoparticles (NPs) as a potential strategy to improve crop production and ameliorate heavy metal toxicity, it is crucial to evaluate the role of NPs in improving the nutrient content of plants under Lead (Pb) stress for achieving higher agriculture productivity to ensure food security. Herein, Brassica napus L. grown under Pb contaminated soil (300 mg/kg) was sprayed with different rates (0, 25, 50, and 100 mg/L) of TiO2 and ZnO-NPs. The plants were evaluated for growth attributes, photosynthetic pigments, leaf exchange attributes, oxidant and antioxidant enzyme activities. The results revealed that 100 mg/L NPs foliar application significantly augmented plant growth, photosynthetic pigments, and leaf gas exchange attributes. Furthermore, 100 mg/L TiO2 and ZnO-NPs application showed a maximum increase in SPAD values (79.1%, 68.9%). NPs foliar application (100 mg/L TiO2 and ZnO-NPs) also substantially reduced malondialdehyde (44.3%, 38.3%), hydrogen peroxide (59.9%, 53.1%), electrolyte leakage (74.8%, 68.3%), and increased peroxidase (93.8%, 89.1%), catalase (91.3%, 84.1%), superoxide dismutase (81.8%, 73.5%) and ascorbate peroxidase (78.5%, 73.7%) thereby reducing Pb accumulation. NPs foliar application (100 mg/L) significantly reduced root Pb (45.7%, 42.3%) and shoot Pb (84.1%, 76.7%) concentration in TiO2 and ZnO-NPs respectively, as compared to control. Importantly, macro and micronutrient analysis showed that foliar application 100 mg/L TiO2 and ZnO-NPs increased shoot zinc (58.4%, 78.7%) iron (79.3%, 89.9%), manganese (62.8%, 68.6%), magnesium (72.1%, 93.7%), calcium (58.2%, 69.9%) and potassium (81.5%, 68.6%) when compared to control without NPs. The same trend was observed for root nutrient concentration. In conclusion, we found that the TiO2 and ZnO-NPs have the greatest efficiency at 100 mg/L concentration to alleviate Pb induced toxicity on growth, photosynthesis, and nutrient content of Brassica napus L. NPs foliar application is a promising strategy to ensure sustainable agriculture and food safety under metal contamination

WORK RELATED INJURIES IN SMALL SCALE METAL PRESS INDUSTRIES OF SHAHDRAH TOWN, LAHORE, PAKISTAN

The work place injuries have to pay both direct and indirect cost of the accidents. With a population of 169 million, Pakistan has no reported estimate of the national impact of workplace injuries. This study presented a profile of workplace injuries associated with small medium enterprises of metal press cottage industries in Shahdra Town, Lahore (Pakistan) and determined the impact on the country’s economy besides to recommend strategies for delineating these important problems. The in-house accident investigation technique was used to collect the data from randomly selected small scale metal press cottage industries of study area for all types of injuries principally from minor to major ones. It was observed that role of human error in occupational injuries is momentous and keeping in view the necessity of proper safety training of the metal workers, thre is a dire need to institute an information system to evaluate the true impact of injuries and develop national safety standards

Assessing the Use of GEE Methods for Analyzing Continuous Outcomes from Family Studies: Strong Heart Family Study

Background: Because of its convenience and robustness, the generalized estimating equations (GEE) method has been commonly used to fit marginal models of continuous outcomes in family studies. However, unbalanced family sizes and complex pedigree structures within each family may challenge the GEE method, which treats families as clusters with the same correlation structure. The appropriateness of using the GEE method to analyze continuous outcomes in family studies remains unclear. In this paper, we performed simulation studies to evaluate the performance of GEE in the analysis of family study data. Methods: In simulation studies, we generated data from a linear mixed effects model with individual random effects. The random effects covariance matrix is specified as twice that of the pedigree matrix from the Strong Heart Family Study (SHFS) and other hypothetical pedigree structures. A Bayesian approach that utilizes the pedigree matrix was also conducted as a benchmark to compare with GEE methods with either independent or exchangeable correlation structures. Finally, analysis with a real data example was included. Results: Our simulation results showed that GEE with independent correlation structure worked well for family data with continuous outcomes. Real data analysis revealed that all GEE and Bayesian approaches produced similar results. Conclusion: GEE model performs well on continuous outcome in family studies, and it yields estimated coefficients similar to a Bayesian model, which takes genetic relationship into account. Overall, GEE is robust to misspecification of genetic relationships among family members

A deep learning approach for context-aware citation recommendation using rhetorical zone classification and similarity to overcome cold-start problem

In the recent decade, the citation recommendation has emerged as an important research topic due to its need for the huge size of published scientific work. Among other citation recommendation techniques, the widely used content-based filtering (CBF) exploits research articles’ textual content to produce recommendations. However, CBF techniques are prone to the well-known cold-start problem. On the other hand, deep learning has shown its effectiveness in understanding the semantics of the text. The present paper proposes a citation recommendation system using deep learning models to classify rhetorical zones of the research articles and compute similarity using rhetorical zone embeddings that overcome the cold-start problem. Rhetorical zones are the predefined linguistic categories having some common characteristics about the text. A deep learning model is trained using ART and CORE datasets with an accuracy of 76 per cent. The final ranked lists of the recommendations have an average of 0.704 normalized discounted cumulative gain (nDCG) score involving ten domain experts. The proposed system is applicable for both local and global context-aware recommendations

Outcomes of cause related marketing: a demographic analysis

The purpose of this study determines the cause related marketing practices in Fast Moving Consumer Goods industry. Further this study investigates the relationship among the determinants of CRM and demographic variables. The sample size of this study was 629. The concern respondents were the post graduate students and employees of different universities and organizations. SPSS was used to analyze the data. This study finds that CRM is proven as strategic tool with multi-dimensional objectives like aligning their brand with worthy cause, by promising to contribute in monetary terms. Their sales increase and fulfill their corporate social responsibility that both are the main goals of any company. By this way companies make better positive image in the society

Hepatoprotective activity of methanolic extract of Malva parviflora against paracetamol-induced hepatotoxicity in mice

Malva parviflora (cheeseweed) is traditionally used as hepatoprotective. The current study was conducted to determine its hepatoprotective activity of aqueous methanolic extract of whole plant. Two doses of plant (250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg) were administered in paracetamol intoxicated mice and results were compared with silymarin. Observational parameters were ALT, AST, ALP and total bilirubin. The results showed that the extract of M. parviflora produced significant (p<0.001) reduction in liver enzymes and total bilirubin. Results were supported by histopathological investigation, phytochemical screening and detection of hepatoprotective constituents (kaempferol and apigenin) by HPLC. So, the current study showed that aqueous methanolic extract of M. parviflora possesses hepatoprotective activity