Terrorism: what the statistics show / Mokhtar Muhammad and Haliza Hasan

Terrorism has been widely used as a tool by extremists to achieve their goals. Terrorists consider themselves as freedom fighters to liberate the socalled "oppressed" people. The destructions caused by terrorists are enormous where many lives perished in this "holy war". How the media cover the acts of terrorism actually differ and varied according to their media policy on how they want to present the terrorist stories in their news reporting especially for the headlines. Like what has been stated earlier, there are two types of media coverage of terrorism namely as pro-terrorist and anti-terrorist. Nowadays, international media especially the Western cable is pro-terrorist press as they believed terrorism news will increase their readership and profit. Without realizing it, they actually trigger and developed the fear of Islam within the world society, as most of them labeled Muslim or Islam as terrorists. This study is based on secondary data to look at the phenomenon of terrorism throughout the world. Descriptive statistics are used to describe and to summarize the acts of terrorism. The statistics on terrorism include the incident information, incident location, attack information, weapon information, target/victim information, perpetrator information, casualties, and consequences. The statistics are summarized using an existing database managed by the University of Maryland, USA, which is named as the Global Terrorism Database (GTD). Information on terrorist attacks captured were incidences in the period of 1970 to 2015. The GTD includes systematic data on domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents that have occurred during this period and contain more than 140,000 cases. The study uses descriptive information about the incidences of terrorism, to show dominant features on certain variables such as attack information or group information, as well as how these dominant features connect with the rest of the variables in the database

Countering terrorism through religion, culture, legal and ethical values / Mokhtar Muhammad and Haliza Hasan

Terrorism has been widely used as a tool by extremist to achieve their political, religious, and ideological agendas. The most worrying issue about terrorism is that innocent civilians are targeted, and they are considered as soft targets. Terrorists consider themselves above the law and normally do not work within the legal and ethical frame of the common army. The mass destruction committed by terrorists is also monstrous in comparison to normal criminals, usually the cause of a huge number of deaths and devastation of properties. Religion is typically used as a motivation for terrorism act where ignorant people are deceived to commit acts of terrorism in the name of religion. This is done by cunning designed doctrines which are used to instigate the perpetrators. Therefore, a better counter-narrative to overcome such doctrines. The use of legal means has proven worldwide to be one of the most effective ways to overcome terrorism. The inculcation of ethics is also important as ethics were throughout history, observed, even in the worse of wars. It is imperatives that all parties of conflicts to observe ethics despite their differences. A culture might easily be influenced by extremist ideas if left unchecked, thus leading to the flourishing of radical ideas. The best solution is for all these elements to synergize to create a concerted effort to combat terrorism

Combining Several Substitution Cipher Algorithms using Circular Queue Data Structure

مع التوسع الثوري في الإنترنت ، تتزايد المعلومات العالمية في تطبيق تكنولوجيا الاتصالات، ويعزز النمو السريع لحجم البيانات الكبير الحاجة إلى تحقيق تقنيات آمنة وقوية وواثقة باستخدام خوارزميات فعالة مختلفة. تقدم هذه الورقة نظامًا تشفيريًا يجمع بين عدة خوارزميات لشفرة الاستبدال جنبًا إلى جنب مع هيكل بيانات طابور دائري . تقنيات الاستبدال المستخدمة هي: شفرة هوموفونك وشفرة بولي الفابيتك, قد دمجت في طابور دائري واحد مع أربعة مفاتيح مختلفة لكل منهما، والتي تنتج ثمانية مخرجات مختلفة لكل حرف وارد واحد. العمل الحالي ممكن تطبيقه بكفاءة لأمنية المعلومات الشخصية وأمنية اتصالات الشبكة كذلك.With the revolutionized expansion of the Internet, worldwide information increases the application of communication technology, and the rapid growth of significant data volume boosts the requirement to accomplish secure, robust, and confident techniques using various effective algorithms. Lots of algorithms and techniques are available for data security.  This paper presents a cryptosystem that combines several Substitution Cipher Algorithms along with the Circular queue data structure. The two different substitution techniques are; Homophonic Substitution Cipher and Polyalphabetic Substitution Cipher in which they merged in a single circular queue with four different keys for each of them, which produces eight different outputs for every single incoming letter. The present work can be applied efficiently for personal information security and network communication security as well, and the time required for ciphering and deciphering a message is less than 0.1 sec

Hybrid Cipher System using Neural Network

The objective of this work is to design and implement a cryptography system that enables the sender to send message through any channel (even if this channel is insecure) and the receiver to decrypt the received message without allowing any intruder to break the system and extracting the secret information. In this work, we implement an interaction between the feedforward neural network and the stream cipher, so the secret message will be encrypted by unsupervised neural network method in addition to the first encryption process which is performed by the stream cipher method. The security of any cipher system depends on the security of the related keys (that are used by the encryption and the decryption processes) and their corresponding lengths. In our work, there are two types of keys; the first type is the keystream that is adopted by the stream cipher stage with optimal length (length of the keystream greater or equal the message length); and the second key type is the final weights that are obtained from the learning process within the neural network stage, So we can represent our work as an update or development for using the neural network to enhance the security of stream cipher. As a result for a powerful hybrid design, the resulted cipher system provides a high degree of security which satisfies the data confidentially which is the main goal of the most cryptography systems

صكوك المضاربة والمرابحة المختلطة: دراسة فقهية تأصيلية تحليلية = Mudharaba and Murabaha mixed sukuk: a fiqhi structural analysis = Mudharaba dan murabaha sukuk campuran: analisis struktur fiqhi

سوق الصكوك أحد أهم مكونات سوق رأس المال الإسلامي لما تقدمه الصكوك من مزايا إدارة السيولة وتنويع المخاطر وإدارة الأصول. هذه الأغراض التي يحققها إصدار الصكوك وتداولها تؤدي في كثير من الأحيان إلى حدوث إشكالات شرعية في هيكلة الصكوك ووثائقها. أحد هذه الهياكل هيكل شاع استخدامه في العقد الأخير في أسواق الصكوك الرئيسية، لما يحققه من جواز التداول وضمان رأس المال، وهو هيكل الجمع بين المرابحة والمضاربة. تقوم هذه الدراسة على المنهج الوصفي التحليلي عبر تحرير المسائل الفقهية التي تناولت الجمع بين العقود من أمهات الكتب الفقهية المعتمدة في المذاهب الأربعة، فتذكر كل مسألة بصورها وأحكامها ومناطاتها. ثم يكون بعد ذلك تحليلٌ وصفي لأحد إصدارات الصكوك التي اعتمدت هذا الهيكل، فتدرس أهم خطوات الإصدار وأهم الشروط والأحكام في وثائقه. بعد ذلك يكون التخريج لصورة الإصدار المذكور على أصوله من المسائل الفقهية المذكورة سعيًا إلى الوصول إلى حكمه عن طريق تخريج الفروع على الأصول. خلصت الدراسة إلى أن لهذه الهيكلة صورًا متعددة بعضها يضمن رأس المال وبعضها يضمن رأس المال والربح معًا وإلى أن الصورتين ممنوعتان، لأن فيها جمعًا بين العقود يؤدي إلى إفساد عقد المضاربة وإلى الوصول إلى غرض محظور شرعاً وهو تضمين المضارب مع بعض المحاذير الشرعية الأخرى. ذكرت الدراسة بعد ذلك الضوابط الشرعية التي ينبغي الالتزام بها في هذه الحالة ثم اقترحت هيكلاً بديلاً يحقق غرض جواز التداول ويحفظ رأس المال قدر الإمكان.****************************Sukuk market is one of the most important components of the Islamic capital market. Sukuk give issuers and investors certain advantages as a liquidity and asset management tool. These advantages sought after by investors and issuers may result in some Shari’ah issues in the structure and exchange of sukuk certificates. One of the structures that gained popularity in the last decade is a structure that combines Mudharaba and Murabaha because it provides certain advantages like tradability and the guarantee of capital. This study utilizes a descriptive analysis method to identify the cases of contract combination in major past juristic references to deduce the rulings adopted by past jurists. After that, the paper analyses current sukuk issuances to find the common features between these issuances and the cases mentioned by past jurists to see the applicability of the past ruling to the current situation in a form of Takhrij Alfuroo’ ‘Ala Alusool. The paper concludes that these structures come in many forms; some guarantee the capital, and some guarantee the capital and the return. Both forms are prohibited because the combination results in the vitiation of Mudaraba contract as it invariably leads to a prohibited objective of making the Mudarib liable for any financial loss regardless of the business outcome in addition to other Shari’ah issues. The study then derived some Shari’ah parameters for this structure to be permissible and suggests a structure that fulfills the intended objectives of issuers and avoids Shari’ah issues as much as possible.******************************* Pasar sukuk adalah salah satu komponen terpenting dalam pasaran modal Islam. Sukuk memberi kelebihan kepada penerbit dan pelabur sebagai alat mudah tunai dan pengurusan aset. Kelebihan ini yang dicari oleh pelabur dan penerbit boleh mengakibatkan beberapa masalah Syariah dalam struktur dan pertukaran sijil sukuk. Salah satu struktur yang mendapat populariti dalam dekad ini adalah struktur yang menggabungkan Mudharaba dan Murabaha kerana memberikan kelebihan tertentu seperti kebolehdagangan dan jaminan modal. Kajian ini menggunakan kaedah analisis deskriptif untuk mengenal pasti kes-kes penggabungan kontrak dalam rujukan perundangan masa lalu untuk menyimpulkan keputusan yang diambil oleh ahli hukum masa lalu. Setelah itu, makalah ini menganalisis penerbitan sukuk terkini untuk mencari ciri umum antara penerbitan ini dan kes-kes yang disebutkan oleh para ahli hukum masa lalu untuk melihat penerapan keputusan masa lalu terhadap situasi semasa dalam bentuk Takhrij Alfuroo '' Ala Alusool. Makalah ini menyimpulkan bahawa struktur ini terdapat dalam pelbagai bentuk; ada yang menjamin modal, dan ada yang menjamin modal dan pulangan. Kedua-dua bentuk dilarang kerana penggabungan tersebut mengakibatkan pengecualian kontrak Mudaraba kerana selalu membawa kepada objektif yang dilarang untuk membuat Mudarib bertanggungjawab atas sebarang kerugian kewangan tanpa mengira hasil perniagaan di samping isu-isu Syariah yang lain. Kajian kemudian memperoleh beberapa parameter Syari'ah agar struktur ini diizinkan dan menunjukkan struktur yang memenuhi objektif penerbit yang dimaksudkan dan menghindari masalah Syari'ah sebanyak mungkin

Burning Skin Detection System in Human Body

Early accurate burn depth diagnosis is crucial for selecting the appropriate clinical intervention strategies and assessing burn patient prognosis quality. However, with limited diagnostic accuracy, the current burn depth diagnosis approach still primarily relies on the empirical subjective assessment of clinicians. With the quick development of artificial intelligence technology, integration of deep learning algorithms with image analysis technology can more accurately identify and evaluate the information in medical images. The objective of the work is to detect and classify burn area in medical images using an unsupervised deep learning algorithm. The main contribution is to developing computations using one of the deep learning algorithm. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework, experiments are performed on the benchmark to evaluate system stability. The results indicate that, the proposed system is simple and suits real life applications. The system accuracy was 75%, when compared with some of the state-of-the-art techniques

Design Optimization of Reflectarray Antenna Fabricated above Paper Based Substrate Materials

A novel combination of X – band reflectarray antenna printed above paper based substrate material has been presented for microwave antenna application. Paper substrate materials with controlled compositions, characterized using dielectric probe shows dielectric constants of 1.68 and 1.74 and loss tangents of 0.074 and 0.082 respectively. Reflectarray unit elements simulated using CST MWS were fabricated over the paper substrates using adhesive copper tape. The fabricated samples tested for the scattering parameters demonstrate an efficient bandwidth of 340 and 290 MHz for both the substrate materials. Moreover the measured reflection phase of the elements covers a phase range of 310º and 290º for proposed paper substrates

Effect of ammonium polyphosphate on flame retardancy, thermal stability and mechanical properties of alkali treated kenaf fiber filled PLA biocomposites

In present research polylactic acid (PLA) biocomposites were prepared from PLA and kenaf fiber using dry blending, twin screw extrusion and compression molding techniques. PLA was blended with kenaf core fiber, polyethylene glycol (PEG) and ammonium polyphosphate (APP). Kenaf fiber was treated with 3%, 6% and 9% NaOH solution separately. Both raw and treated kenaf along with 10, 15 and 20 phr APP was utilized during composite preparation. The effects of APP content and alkali treatment on flammability, thermal and mechanical properties of kenaf fiber filled PLA biocomposites were investigated. APP is shown to be very effective in improving flame retardancy properties according to limiting oxygen index measurement due to increased char residue at high temperatures. However addition of APP decreased the compatibility between PLA and kenaf fiber, resulting in significant reduction of the mechanical properties of PLA biocomposites. Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that NaOH treatment improved the thermal stability of PLA biocomposites and decreased carbonaceous char formation

Impact of financial inclusion on poverty through Islamic microfinance in Mauritania

Poverty is a severe problem, particularly in third world countries. Since reducing poverty is the first goal of Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, it is the concern of numerous organizations and governments. This chapter is a conceptual paper that discusses the effectiveness of microfinance in eradicating poverty. The main purpose of this chapter is to present the current situation of poverty in Mauritania and the prospect to alleviate it through Islamic microfinance and financial inclusion. It also attempts to propose new suggestions for the Mauritanian government to alleviate poverty and increase people's wellbeing. It has been concluded that Islamic microfinance can reduce poverty in Mauritania. Thus, this research recommends policymakers and managers of Islamic microfinance to enhance the outreach of microfinance institutions to reach a large segment of vulnerable people. This study is among the pioneers in the field of Islamic microfinance in Mauritania, so it fills up this gap in the literature and adds new theoretical discussion to the topic worldwide

Did Fintech increase Financial Inclusion in Africa ?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a revolutionary technology that has been used tremendously in the contemporary industrial revolution 4.0 technology. AI has played a crucial role in accelerating financial inclusion rate by easing the use of financial products. From the African perspectives, there is a very few notable uses of AI technologies in the banking and finance industry but such uses are not advance in nature. Therefore, this paper attempts to study the role of AI for financial inclusion in some selected African countries. This paper is a conceptual study that uses a systematic literature review. This study uses variuos and most recent published papers obtained from different online databases (mainly Scopus, Elsevier science direct, Tailor & Francis, EBSCO, and JSTOR) to investigate the conceptual and empirical role of AI on financial inclusion and poverty in some selected African countries. The study reveals that the most common fintech tools used in Africa are mobile money and crowdfunding. Therefore, some recommendations are provided for governments and policymakers to instigate techniques that will enhance digital financial inclusion including the utilization of Artificial Intelligence for the purpose of poverty alleviation in Afric