Gendering Death: A Study of Oppressive Stereotypes Underlying Muslim Funeral and Burial Rituals in Egypt

This research explores how Muslim funeral and burial rituals in Egypt are shaped by gender stereotypes and socio-cultural norms that predispose masculinity and femininity. It examines the experience of research participants in the context of these gendered rituals and how it affects their participation in them. I adopt a qualitative methodology using personal narrative and auto-ethnography. Analysing physical and emotional experiences, I assess how the regulation of female bodies impacts women participants’ understanding of their bodies. Gender stereotypes, such as the association of women with irrationality, are scrutinised in regards to how they influence ritual and ceremonial practices – such as sex segregation – and in turn affect the emotional experiences of participant women. Furthermore, I address the performativity of masculinity imposed by the ceremonies and assert that Muslim burial and funeral rituals are a norm, a form of power demarcated by gender stereotypes. The gendered nature of the rituals shapes our experiences as males and females, rendering it unequal

The Environmental Imperative of Nuclear Disarmament

The world is threatened as never before by an insane buildup of nuclear weapons some five hundred times as strong in their explosive capacity as the latest estimate of all the chemical explosives that have ever been used throughout history. Leaders in major countries probably know the awful consequences of a nuclear war too well to start one, but the world has still to reckon with possible acts of aggression by other nations or flaring-up through technological failure, mechanical or other accident, malfunctioning or faulty feeding of computers, misinformation, neglect of machines or of constructional faults, terrorist or lunatic action, organized banditry, or the outcome of mere ‘acts of God'

Unveiling the role of carbon defects in the exceptional narrowing of m-ZrO2 bandgap for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting performance

The development of efficient photoelectrodes via defect engineering of wide-band gap metal oxides has been the prime focus for many years. Specifically, the effect of carbon defects in wide-band gap metal oxides on their performance in photoelectrochemical (PEC) applications raised numerous controversies and still elusive. Herein, the effect of various carbon defects in m-ZrO2 was investigated using the density functional theory to probe the thermodynamic, electronic, and optical properties of the defective structures against pristine m-ZrO2. The defect formation energies revealed that elevating the temperature promotes and facilitates the formation of carbon defects. Moreover, the binding energies confirmed the stability of all studied complex carbon defects. Furthermore, the band edge positions against the redox potentials of water species revealed that all the studied defective structures can serve as photoanodes for water splitting. Additionally, CO3c (carbon atom substituted O3c site) was the only defective structure that exhibited slight straddling of the redox potentials of water. Importantly, all investigated defective structures enhanced light absorption with different optical activities. Finally, CO3cVO3c (carbon atom substituted O3c associated with O3c vacancy) defective m-ZrO2 enjoyed low direct band gap (1.9 eV), low defect formation energy, low exciton binding energy, high mobility of charge carriers, fast charge transfer, and low recombination rate. Concurrently, its optical properties were exceptional in terms of high absorption, low reflectivity and improved static dielectric constant. Hence, the study recommends CO3cVO3c defective m-ZrO2 as the leading candidate to serve as a photoanode for PEC applications

Utility of Certain Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution Reactions for the Assay of Ethamsylate in its Dosage forms and in Presence of its Degradation Product

The study represents the first report on the development of spectrophotometric methods for determination of ethamsylate (EST) in the presence of hydroquinone as an impurity and/or acidic degradation product. The proposed methods are based on the reaction of EST through it,s secondary amino group either with 1,2-naphthoquinone-4-sulphonate sodium (NQS) at pH 10.7 or 2,4-dinitrofluorobenzene (DNFB) at pH 9.3 to form orange and yellow colored reaction products peaking at 478 and 387 nm for methods (I) and (II), respectively. The different experimental parameters affecting the development and stability of the reaction products in methods (I) and (II) were carefully studied and optimized. The absorbance-concentration plots were rectilinear over the concentration ranges of 2-30 and 2-14 µg mL−1 for methods (I) and (II), respectively. The lower detection limits were 0.13 and 0.19 µg mL−1 and the lower quantitation limits were 0.44 and 0.63 µg mL−1 for methods (I) and (II), respectively. Both methods were successfully applied to commercial ampoules and tablets

A new squat lobster of the genus Munidopsis (Crustacea, Decapoda, Munidopsidae) from the Mediterranean Sea

8 páginas, 4 figuras[EN]A new species of Munidopsis Whiteaves, 1874 is reported from the south of Crete, at 2046-2104 m, in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The species (M. ariadne) is morphologically closely related to M. maunga Schnabel and Bruce, 2006, from New Zealand. The species is also close to M. polymorpha Koelbel, 1892, from Lanzarote, Canary Islands, and M. talismani A. Milne Edwards and Bouvier, 1894, from the NW Africa. The new species is described and illustrated and a diagnosis along with full illustration is provided for the latter 2 species.[ES]Una nueva especie de crustáceo del género Munidopsis (Crustacea: Decapoda: Munidopsidae) del mar Mediterráneo. – Se describe una especie nueva de Munidopsis Whiteaves, 1874 capturada al sur de Creta, a 2046-2104 m, en el Mediterráneo oriental. La especie (M. ariadne) es próxima morfológicamente a M. maunga Schnabel and Bruce, 2006, de Nueva Zelanda. La especie está también relacionada con M. polymorpha Koelbel, 1892, de Lanzarote, Islas Canarias, y M. talismani A. Milne Edwards and Bouvier, 1894, del NO de África.Peer reviewe

SOME ASPECTS OF ENERGY SAVING OF BURDEN MATERIAL IN THE BLAST FURNACE

To determine the possibility of self-stabilization effect for burden surface texture and gas flow in operating blast furnace under the proper conditions was experimentally proved for the first time, as well as the reasons of the effect disruption

An efficient chameleon swarm algorithm for economic load dispatch problem

Economic Load Dispatch (ELD) is a complicated and demanding problem for power engineers. ELD relates to the minimization of the economic cost of production, thereby allocating the produced power by each unit in the most possible economic manner. In recent years, emphasis has been laid on minimization of emissions, in addition to cost, resulting in the Combined Economic and Emission Dispatch (CEED) problem. The solutions of the ELD and CEED problems are mostly dominated by metaheuristics. The performance of the Chameleon Swarm Algorithm (CSA) for solving the ELD problem was tested in this work. CSA mimics the hunting and food searching mechanism of chameleons. This algorithm takes into account the dynamics of food hunting of the chameleon on trees, deserts, and near swamps. The performance of the aforementioned algorithm was compared with a number of advanced algorithms in solving the ELD and CEED problems, such as Sine Cosine Algorithm (SCA), Grey Wolf Optimization (GWO), and Earth Worm Algorithm (EWA). The simulated results established the efficacy of the proposed CSA algorithm. The power mismatch factor is the main item in ELD problems. The best value of this factor must tend to nearly zero. The CSA algorithm achieves the best power mismatch values of 3.16×10−13, 4.16×10−12 and 1.28×10−12 for demand loads of 700, 1000, and 1200 MW, respectively, of the ELD problem. The CSA algorithm achieves the best power mismatch values of 6.41×10−13 , 8.92×10−13 and 1.68×10−12 for demand loads of 700, 1000, and 1200 MW, respectively, of the CEED problem. Thus, the CSA algorithm was found to be superior to the algorithms compared in this work

Synthesis and cation-receptor properties of macrocyclic imines of anthraquinone

At the present study a series of crown-containing imines of 1-hydroxy-9,10-anthraquinone with donor and acceptor substituents at the anthraquinone nucleus were synthesized. Compounds were prepared photochemically from the corresponding photoactive 1-phenoxyanthraquinones and 4-aminobenzo-15-crown-5 ether. It was established spectrophotometrically that for crown-containing anthraquinone imines that are characterized by "imine-enamine" prototropic tautomerism, the insertion of acceptor substituents shifts the equilibrium to the "enamine" form. This shift leads to essential spectral changes in complexing chlor- and nitrocontaining macrocyclic imines of anthraquinone with alkali and alkaline-earth metal cations