Methods and Varieties of Guidance According to Imām Māturīdī

Māturīdī, one of the prominent Kalām scholar, is mostly considered to have played a significant role in the construction of a sustainable religious approach today. This recognition originates from his joint reference to intellect and divine inspiration with regard to issues in Kalām in addition to his contributions to the Sunni way of thinking. His balanced use of the intellect and divine inspiration in his solutions for issues of Hidāyat increased his popularity. In the Muslim world, just as in any other community, perception of reality or guidance not as a process but as outright values of their community causes such problems as religious fanaticism and advocacy for sole truth. To solve such problems, a sound understanding of guidance in Muslim communities should be constructed in the light of scientific and social realities. In this respect, determining unique and comprehensive interpretations of Māturīdī of the issue will be of great help for establishing a peaceful religious understanding for the common future of humanity. In the center of Māturīdī’s interpretations of guidance lies his approach to guidance with respect to its methods and varieties. Besides presenting the definitions of these methods and varieties, the current study analyzes Māturīdī’s interpretations of how these methods and varieties interact

Developing a mouse model to study the metabolic role of the mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 in adipose tissue

The term "diabesity" is a pandemic that is threatening populations worldwide and is the term is finding itself as a household name, fueling itself through the high-fat diet and sedentary lifestyle. As a result of these living choices, the population is suffering from lipotoxicity, the underlying cause of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) and insulin resistance. Lipolytic control resides around the rate-limiting enzyme, adipose triglyceride lipase, which is normally downregulated in the insulin-stimulated state. This is the signal that is aberrant in patients who have T2DM and could be a significant factor in lipotoxicity. This state of lipotoxicity leads to many complications, increasing the risk of heart disease, heart attack, blindness, nephropathy, neuropathy, and stroke. Vasculature damage also can lead to poor perfusion of the lower extremities, increasing the risk of ulcer, gangrene, and amputation of the foot. An area of research delving into this issue lies within the mammalian target of rapamycin complex 1 (mTORC1), as it mediates the antilipolytic signal and decreases ATGL expression. This discovery was further clarified when the Kandror lab identified the transcription factor early growth factor 1 (Egr1) as the protein that binds to the promoter region of ATGL and downregulates its transcription. Egr1 has also been thought to be a factor in the development of insulin resistance in the hyperinsulemic state. To date, we have experimented upon murine 3T3-L1 and human adipocytes. We have developed a double transgenic mouse positive for reverse tetracycline transactivator (rtTA) and myc-tagged ras homolog enriched in brain (Rheb), which is a misnomer as it is located in adipose tissue (AT). With the mTORC1 axis hyperactive, we seek to show that Egr1 is a rich target in diabetes and lipotoxicity, regulating and inhibiting ATGL levels through mTORC1

Entropic selection of Nash equilibrium

This study argues that Nash equilibria with less variations in players' best responses are more appealing. To that regard, a notion measuring such variations, the entropic selection of Nash equilibrium, is presented: For any given Nash equilibrium, we consider the cardinality of the support of a player's best response against others' strategies that are sufficiently close to the behavior specified. These cardinalities across players are then aggregated with a real-valued function on whose form we impose no restrictions apart from the natural limitation to nondecreasingness in order to obtain equilibria with less variations. We prove that the entropic selection of Nash equilibrium is non-empty and admit desirable properties. Some well-known games, each of which display important insights about virtues / problems of various equilibrium notions, are considered; and, in all of these games our notion displays none of the criticisms associated with these examples. These examples also show that our notion does not have any containment relations with other associated and well-known refinements, perfection, properness and persistence

Limiting Cross-Retaliation when Punishment is Limited: How DSU Article 22.3 Complements GATT Article XXVIII

This paper analyzes two prominent institutional rules in the international trading system: a lim- ited cross-retaliation rule characterized by the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU) Article 22.3 and a limited punishment rule characterized by the General Agreement on Taris and Trade (GATT) Article XXVIII. In general, both rules are designed to limit the countermeasures upon a violation; however, the former rule species the limits of composition in retaliation, whereas the latter one designates the limits of retaliation magnitude. We show that, albeit seemingly unrelated, the limited cross-retaliation rule complements the limited punishment rule in per- mitting greater trade liberalization. Specically, we show how the limited cross-retaliation rule also helps limit the incentives to violate the trade agreement when the limited punishment rule prevails.

In pursuit of national interest: change and continuity in Malaysia’s foreign policy towards the middle east

Malaysia’s foreign policy has traditionally been focussed on Southeast Asia and its friends in the West. As such, the Middle East was not a priority area in its foreign policy despite the long established historical, social and religious connections that the country had with the region. It was not until the 1980s that Malaysia began to develop closer cooperation with the Middle East within the framework of strengthening relations with the Islamic world. Bilateral relations remained close with several countries of the region, although they lacked the visibility and force in comparison with Malaysia’s relations with East Asian countries and the West. This paper examines Malaysia’s contemporary foreign policy towards the Middle East,the factors shaping it, the issues and challenges in managing its relations with the region. It argues that Malaysia’s objectives in the Middle East are tied to securing its national interests that can be achieved by enhancing political, economic and social ties with the countries of the region. As a small country, Malaysia does not have the influence to affect events in the region. However, there are mechanisms and frameworks as well as the social and religious links that can help promote the country’s national interests. The paper further argues that while there are reasons to continue with the current policy towards the Middle East, Malaysia needs to take stock of the successes and failures of its relations with the countries of the region, and to explore some areas outside those traditional ones so as to take advantage of the economic opportunities that the region may provide

A generalization of the Minkowski distance and a new definition of the ellipse

In this paper, we generalize the Minkowski distance by defining a new distance function in n-dimensional space, and we show that this function determines also a metric family as the Minkowski distance. Then, we consider three special cases of this family, which generalize the taxicab, Euclidean and maximum metrics respectively, and finally we determine circles of them with their some properties in the real plane. While we determine some properties of circles of the generalized Minkowski distance, we also discover a new definition for the ellipse.Comment: 18 pages, 18 figure

Development Communication in Indonesia: Programmes, Methods, and Approaches

Development communication is an art and science that has evolved through various communication activities and programs conducted over the past twenty years especially in the field of agricultural communication. Experiences in Indonesia are providing certain insights into the issue of communication in the agricultural development that can be made effective. In Indonesia, there is a variety of communication resources being marshalled to help agriculture develop. Farmer groups and Contact-Farmers are the essential social institutions within the agricultural communication framework in Indonesia. Several methodologies or approaches related to this foundation which have been implemented are: Farmer\u27s Agricultural and Rural Training Center (FAR-TC); Integrated Pest Management (IPM); Income Generating Project for Marginal Farmers and Landless (IGP); Decentralized Agricultural and Forestry Extension Project (DAFEP); and The Training and Visit System (T&V)