In this paper, I critically explore Ann Sharp’s conception of personhood as it figures in the theory and practice of the community of philosophical inquiry (CPI). Through surveying Sharp’s rich and varied philosophical output, it will be shown how Sharp’s conception of personhood as a trilateral relationship (between self, other(s), and community) maps onto “the Three C’s” of critical, creative, and caring thinking that make up the practice of Philosophy for Children. After thus presenting Sharp’s conception of personhood, the paper (...) brings into view an aspect of said conception which could benefit from further development. This potential shortfall in Sharp’s thought is identified as “the problem of closure”. In highlighting the problem of closure, I will indicate how Sharp marshals the concept of faith in her conception of CPI as a spiritual community, a relationship that is coincident with personhood itself, as it stands for the bond that ties together the individual (self and other(s)) and the collective (community) dimensions of CPI. I argue that faith serves, among other things, as an agent of closure between the individual and the collective in Sharp’s thought. In considering the function of faith in CPI, I will suggest an avenue of possible resolution to the problem of closure in Leonard Nelson’s conception of “the Socratic spirit” as the embodiment of “reason’s self-confidence”. Finally, the paper looks ahead to David Kennedy’s writings on the intentionality structure that governs the relationship between the individual and the collective in CPI as a resource that promises to offer a more rigorous and systematic treatment of the problem of closure. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to read the poetic principle behind the Tammuzi movement of modern Arabic poetry through the lens of speculative poetics. While speculative-poetic accounts of modern poetry, such as those provided by Allen Grossman, blazed new paths connecting poetry to personhood in modernity, their application to the development of modern poetry outside of Europe remains limited by their self-avowed focus on European history. This paper will outline a critical corrective to speculative poetics which, I argue, can be (...) of value in extending its domain of application to Arabic projects of poetic modernity, particularly the two tendencies of "free verse" and "commitment" poetry that emerged out of the Tammuzi movement. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to read the poetic principle behind the Tammuzi movement of modern Arabic poetry through the lens of speculative poetics. While speculative-poetic accounts of modern poetry, such as those provided by Allen Grossman, blazed new paths connecting poetry to personhood in modernity, their application to the development of modern poetry outside of Europe remains limited by their self-avowed focus on European history. This paper will outline a critical corrective to speculative poetics which, I argue, can be (...) of value in extending its domain of application to Arabic projects of poetic modernity, particularly the two tendencies of "free verse" and "commitment" poetry that emerged out of the Tammuzi movement. (shrink)

Countless conceptual metaphors related to human experience have been identified and discussed in the literature. In most conceptual metaphors, a concrete, experiential sou...

Volume 34, Issue 4, October-December 2019, Page 262-264.

In this paper we examine the effect of two cognitive variables, Semantic Neighborhood Density and Interpretive Diversity, in first, distinguishing between literary (poetic) and nonliterary metaphor, and second, in determining what makes for a good metaphor. Analyses of items taken from a widely used set ofmetaphor norms indicated that while literary and nonliterary metaphor did not differ in many ways, the poetic items tended to 1) contain concepts that came from a more dense semantic space, 2) contain topic and vehicles (...) that came from equally dense semantic space, 3) suggest a greater number of possible interpretations as the topic and vehicle became more semantically dissimilar, and 4) evoke more emergent interpretations (i.e., less likely to be a characteristic of the topic or vehicle when considered separately). In addition, we found one way that the two variables were related to metaphor goodness: better metaphors were those with vehicles that came from increasingly less dense semantic space. This correlation was only reliable for literary, poetic items, presumably because these items were taken from a richer semantic environment suggesting many more alternative possibilities. (shrink)

RésuméDepuis la redécouverte de la Muqaddima d'Ibn Khaldūn à l’époque moderne, l'identité intellectuelle de cet auteur fait débat: était-il un penseur révolutionnaire dans le sens moderne du terme, rompant avec les manières de penser classiques et médiévales, ou plutôt un intellectuel musulman conservateur ne s’étant pas aventuré au-delà des horizons musulmans traditionnels? Par un examen attentif de la préface à la Muqaddima, cet article montre comment l'auteur se représentait son propre projet et pourquoi il jugeait celui-ci nécessaire. Le portrait d'Ibn (...) Khaldūn qui s'en dégage alors est celui d'un révolutionnaire – mais non pas au sens moderne du terme – qui n'a pas craint de remettre en question la tradition afin de réformer l'horizon moral et politique de la société. Cet examen de la seule préface n'apporte certes pas une réponse définitive à la question du statut radical ou conservateur de la pensée d'Ibn Khaldūn, mais il permet de mettre en contexte son conservatisme – apparent et réel. (shrink)

In a continuation of the conversation with Fitch, Chomsky, and Hauser on the evolution of language, we examine their defense of the claim that the uniquely human, language-specific part of the language faculty (the “narrow language faculty”) consists only of recursion, and that this part cannot be considered an adaptation to communication. We argue that their characterization of the narrow language faculty is problematic for many reasons, including its dichotomization of cognitive capacities into those that are utterly unique and those (...) that are identical to nonlinguistic or nonhuman capacities, omitting capacities that may have been substantially modified during human evolution. We also question their dichotomy of the current utility versus original function of a trait, which omits traits that are adaptations for current use, and their dichotomy of humans and animals, which conflates similarity due to common function and similarity due to inheritance from a recent common ancestor. We show that recursion, though absent from other animals’ communications systems, is found in visual cognition, hence cannot be the sole evolutionary development that granted language to humans. Finally, we note that despite Fitch et al.’s denial, their view of language evolution is tied to Chomsky’s conception of language itself, which identifies combinatorial productivity with a core of “narrow syntax.” An alternative conception, in which combinatoriality is spread across words and constructions, has both empirical advantages and greater evolutionary plausibility. q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

It is facile and factually incorrect to represent suicide terrorists as simply seeking mass destruction, as demented or believing that they will be rewarded by "seventy-two virgins in paradise". In my book The Myth of the Closed Mind: Understanding How and Why People are Rational I felt it was important to deal with the issue of terrorism by consulting explanatory theories of human behaviour and the substantial research on the strategic pattern of terrorist incidents over the decades, led principally by (...) Professor Robert Pape of Chicago University. -/- To defeat your enemy, you must first understand him. Strangely, we must first grant that, though morally depraved, terrorists are rational: they concoct and execute detailed plans with definite strategic goals in mind. Only once we have granted the terrorist a rational mind can we, in the end, create peace. My argument is that while religion may have a small role in terrorism, it is principally politics, or the logic of territorial control, that is the key to understanding the threat we face. -/- This extract from my book is principally about Al Qaeda, but a similar analysis applies to ISIS, the current greatest threat to our peace in the west. -/- The strategic goal of Al Qaeda was simply to repulse what they saw as foreign intervention. ISIS has the same goal, but in order to continue its growth as a state in the sense of a monopoly of coercion over a given geographical area. -/- ISIS, a rogue state that arose in ungoverned space created unintentionally by foreign intervention in Iraq, is now lashing out at foreign governments that have severely shrunk the territory ISIS occupies. Before October 2015, ISIS confined its terrorism to the goal of extending its territory in Iraq and Syria, and there were no significant ISIS-led or inspired suicide terrorist attacks outside Iraq and Syria. But now, as their territory collapses, they are attacking the countries that have strangled their control of territory in Iraq and Syria: the coalition of western governments – Britain, Belgium, Canada, France, Morocco, Turkey, Russia, the U.S.A. and others – exactly the countries that have recently seen an explosion of suicide terrorism. (shrink)

To discover affects within Husserl’s texts designates a difficult investigation; it points to a theme of which these texts were forced to speak, even as they were explicitly speaking of regional ontologies and the foundations of sciences. For we may at first wonder: where can affection find a positive role in the rigor of a pure philosophy that seeks to account for its phenomena from within the immanence of consciousness? Does this not mean that the very passivity and foreignness of (...) affect will be overlooked; will it not be continually linked to a Vorstellung that issues as a ray of the pure ego? That is, will the phenomenological account of affect be reduced to the cognition of an object, as Emmanuel Levinas suggests? Yet there are affects in Husserl’s texts that maintain their autonomy and resist subsumption to an objectivating intentionality.We may see this in the Lectures On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time: in the longitudinal intentionality of retention, through which consciousness becomes aware of its elapsed phases without making them into objects—a passive synthesis that gives the flow of time-constituting consciousness the form of a continually deferred auto-affection.1We find it again as early as the fifth Logical Investigation, 2 providing us with the impetus to radicalize Husserlian phenomenology. (shrink)

As an emerging human resource issue in business ethics, work-life balance has been gaining increasing attention from both practitioners and scholars in recent years. In response to the call of Kelliher et al. :97–112, 2019), we addressed the research gap by examining the WLB of Chinese knowledge workers under flextime arrangement and the impact of work-life supportive culture on work-life spillover of the workers. Specifically, we examined the relationships between three components of work-life supportive culture, namely managerial support, career consequences, (...) and organizational time demands, and two aspects of work-life spillover, positive and negative spillover, perceived by the workers. A quantitative survey with 35 employees in a software development company in Hong Kong was conducted. The results of structure equation modelling showed that managerial support was positively related to positive work-life spillover while organizational time demands was positively related to employees’ negative spillover. WLB needs of knowledge workers and the role of organizational culture in effective implementation of WLB policies were discussed, and several feasible WLB policies were suggested for managers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha RayChioma Dibia (bio)Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha Ray New York: Oxford University Press, 2023Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, bioethics had engaged only sparingly with the concept of racism. In 2016, Danis and colleagues published an article exhorting bioethicists to engage more meaningfully with the concept (...) of racism—given its impact on health and well being—and to consider strategies for combating it within and outside clinical settings (Danis et al. 2016, 5). While this paper generated considerable debate regarding how far bioethics ought to go in its engagement with racism (Baker 2016, 16; Weddle 2016, 32; Fuller 2016, 29), the focus of the field of bioethics quickly turned to more traditional subjects of bioethical inquiry, including ethical issues arising in doctor-patient relationships and new reproductive technologies. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd during that time, racism has received greater attention in the bioethics literature and Keisha Ray's Black Health arrives just in time to urge us to ensure that the current focus on the impact of racism on the health of racially minoritized people is not short-lived (Ray 2023, 21; BBC News 2020).The overarching argument in Ray's Black Health is that Black people's poor health does not arise from innate biological deficiencies but stems from their experience of racism at the structural, institutional, and interpersonal levels. Ray stresses that far from being solely a feature of America's past, racism [End Page 105] continues to taint Black people's relationship with the healthcare system and other societal institutions. In each chapter, Ray focuses on a specific racial disparity in health to illustrate how racism limits Black people's access to the social determinants of health and thereby contributes to their poor health. To set the context for this discussion, Ray provides an introductory chapter where she unpacks key terms including "racism," "racial disparities," and "the social determinants of health." In this chapter, Ray also clearly outlines the structure of the text and provides a summary of each chapter. This chapter provides the blueprint for the rest of the book, as in it, Ray provides a clear statement of the style, content, and purpose of Black Health.The first racial disparity that Ray considers is Black birthing mortality, and in chapter 1, Ray traces this to the history of slavery and eugenic policies which have shaped the relationship between physicians and Black women. As Ray explains, since Black people were forcibly brought to the United States, the government has sought to control Black women's reproductive lives and has often relied on physicians to effect control. She demonstrates how harmful stereotypes about Black women, including their so-called hardiness, originated in medical literature and have been used to deny pregnant Black women humane care. According to Ray, "[c]linicians' attitude and behaviors towards Black pregnant people still reflect an enslaved and slave-owner mentality, and this has great consequences for the survival of Black pregnant people." (32) By highlighting the birthing experiences of Serena Williams and Shalon Irving, Ray dispels the assumption that wealth or academic qualifications are a panacea for Black birthing mortality and shows how racism can be deadly for all Black pregnant women, irrespective of socioeconomic status. Ray also considers how income and housing inequities affect Black pregnant women and the cumulative effect of weathering on their health as well as that of their unborn children. This chapter most clearly shows how interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism operate and intersect to render pregnancy and childbirth a potentially dangerous experience for Black women.Next, Ray turns to racial disparities in clinical pain management and continues to explore the impact of historically racist beliefs and false stereotypes on the care of Black people. However, in this second chapter, Ray delves more deeply into the role of medical literature—both historical and contemporary sources—in perpetuating false assumptions about the Black body. She demonstrates how the historical portrayal of the Black body as not only less than human... (shrink)

A study of the structural perfection of icosahedral quasicrystalline grains of various alloys and Al-Cu-Fe), grown by different slow solidification techniques was performed using high-resolution diffraction, including recording rocking curves combined with X-ray topography and phase contrast radiography, at a third-generation synchrotron radiation source . For Al-Pd-Mn, additional coherent diffraction and diffuse scattering measurements were also carried out. After evaluating the potentialities of the techniques used, in the light of the criteria defined for crystals, it is shown that the structural (...) perfection of icosahedral quasicrystals is quite comparable with that of metallic crystals but is considerably influenced by either uniform phason strains which can destroy the quasiperiodic long-range order, or by long-wavelength phason fluctuations leading to diffuse scattering. The structural perfection was also found to be extremely variable across the as-grown quasicrystalline grains and to be dependent on the presence and characteristics of inhomogeneities often included in the quasicrystalline matrix. Regarding the grains that we used, it has been impossible to distinguish a clear influence of either the type of alloy or the growth method. It has, however, been noticed that Al-Pd-Mn and Al-Cu-Fe grains appeared less defective than Zn-Mg-RE grains and that the microstructure of these latter grains looks like that of crystals grown by the same technique. Annealing and mechanical polishing effects have also been analysed in the case of Al-Pd-Mn grains. It appeared that annealing improves the quasicrystalline lattice perfection by lowering phason strains insofar as no precipitates are nucleated. Mechanical polishing can introduce defects, located at the external surfaces, having the shape of bands. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha RayChioma Dibia (bio)Black Health: The Social, Political, and Cultural Determinants of Black People's Health by Keisha Ray New York: Oxford University Press, 2023Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, bioethics had engaged only sparingly with the concept of racism. In 2016, Danis and colleagues published an article exhorting bioethicists to engage more meaningfully with the concept (...) of racism—given its impact on health and well being—and to consider strategies for combating it within and outside clinical settings (Danis et al. 2016, 5). While this paper generated considerable debate regarding how far bioethics ought to go in its engagement with racism (Baker 2016, 16; Weddle 2016, 32; Fuller 2016, 29), the focus of the field of bioethics quickly turned to more traditional subjects of bioethical inquiry, including ethical issues arising in doctor-patient relationships and new reproductive technologies. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic and the murder of George Floyd during that time, racism has received greater attention in the bioethics literature and Keisha Ray's Black Health arrives just in time to urge us to ensure that the current focus on the impact of racism on the health of racially minoritized people is not short-lived (Ray 2023, 21; BBC News 2020).The overarching argument in Ray's Black Health is that Black people's poor health does not arise from innate biological deficiencies but stems from their experience of racism at the structural, institutional, and interpersonal levels. Ray stresses that far from being solely a feature of America's past, racism [End Page 105] continues to taint Black people's relationship with the healthcare system and other societal institutions. In each chapter, Ray focuses on a specific racial disparity in health to illustrate how racism limits Black people's access to the social determinants of health and thereby contributes to their poor health. To set the context for this discussion, Ray provides an introductory chapter where she unpacks key terms including "racism," "racial disparities," and "the social determinants of health." In this chapter, Ray also clearly outlines the structure of the text and provides a summary of each chapter. This chapter provides the blueprint for the rest of the book, as in it, Ray provides a clear statement of the style, content, and purpose of Black Health.The first racial disparity that Ray considers is Black birthing mortality, and in chapter 1, Ray traces this to the history of slavery and eugenic policies which have shaped the relationship between physicians and Black women. As Ray explains, since Black people were forcibly brought to the United States, the government has sought to control Black women's reproductive lives and has often relied on physicians to effect control. She demonstrates how harmful stereotypes about Black women, including their so-called hardiness, originated in medical literature and have been used to deny pregnant Black women humane care. According to Ray, "[c]linicians' attitude and behaviors towards Black pregnant people still reflect an enslaved and slave-owner mentality, and this has great consequences for the survival of Black pregnant people." (32) By highlighting the birthing experiences of Serena Williams and Shalon Irving, Ray dispels the assumption that wealth or academic qualifications are a panacea for Black birthing mortality and shows how racism can be deadly for all Black pregnant women, irrespective of socioeconomic status. Ray also considers how income and housing inequities affect Black pregnant women and the cumulative effect of weathering on their health as well as that of their unborn children. This chapter most clearly shows how interpersonal, institutional, and structural racism operate and intersect to render pregnancy and childbirth a potentially dangerous experience for Black women.Next, Ray turns to racial disparities in clinical pain management and continues to explore the impact of historically racist beliefs and false stereotypes on the care of Black people. However, in this second chapter, Ray delves more deeply into the role of medical literature—both historical and contemporary sources—in perpetuating false assumptions about the Black body. She demonstrates how the historical portrayal of the Black body as not only less than human... (shrink)

Al-Kindi was influenced by two Greek traditions in his attempts to explain vision, light and color. Most obviously, his works on optics are indebted to Euclid and, perhaps indirectly, to Ptolemy. But he also knew some works from the Aristotelian tradition that touch on the nature of color and vision. Al-Kindi explicitly rejects the Aristotelian account of vision in his De Aspectibus, and adopts a theory according to which we see by means of a visual ray emitted from the eye. (...) But in the same work, al-Kindi draws on Philoponus. (shrink)

Avery’s et al. ’s 1944 paper provides the first direct evidence of DNA having gene-like properties and marks the beginning of a new phase in early molecular genetics (with a strong focus on chemistry and DNA). The study of its reception shows that on the whole, Avery’s results were immediately appreciated and motivated new research on transformation, the chemical nature of DNA’s biological specificity and bacteria genetics. It shows, too, that initial problems of transferring transformation to other systems and prominent (...) criticism of its results nurtured skepticism. Avery’s experiment was downplayed and neglected particularly by many of those scientists who worked in the new fields of biochemical and biophysical genetics, genetic phage, and TMV research. This was not due to the fact that the implications of the paper could not be connected to generally accepted knowledge. Contrary to a widespread belief, the assumed uniformity of DNA as opposed to proteins was not used as an argument against the validity of Avery’s et al.’s finding. The indifference rather reflected, among other things, the disciplinary gap between the chemically oriented microbiologists and the old and new geneticists who remained committed to genetic and physical methods (in particular x-ray studies) and clung to the assumption that proteins were the sole carriers of biological specificity. The responses to Avery’s et al.’s paper show how different research interests in the areas between microbiology, genetics, and biochemistry interacted with the prejudices, dogmas, individual farsightedness or short-sightedness, and scientific authority during a pivotal period of early molecular biology. (shrink)

In the present work, the microstructure of the melt-spun Al 90 Ce 10 alloy has been characterized using X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy together with energy-dispersive spectrometry. It has been found that the microstructure of the melt-spun Al 90 Ce 10 alloy is composed of the amorphous phase, f -Al, f -Al 11 Ce 3 , Al 3 Ce and unidentified phases, quite different from that of the ingot-like alloy consisting of coarse primary f -Al- f -Al 11 Ce (...) 3 dendrites embedded in the f -Al- f -Al 11 Ce 3 eutectic matrix. Moreover, the amorphous phase is dominant in the melt-spun Al 90 Ce 10 alloy according to the XRD and TEM results. Al 3 Ce particles, less than 100 nm in size, are dispersed in the partial amorphous phase. Polygonal f -Al 11 Ce 3 crystals embedded in the f -Al matrix are also observed. The presence of the hexagonal, kite-like and petal-like intermetallic particles surrounded by the amorphous phase indicates that there exist micro-inhomogeneous structures in the Al 90 Ce 10 melt. These results demonstrate that the overheating of the melt has a significant effect on the amorphization of the Al 90 Ce 10 alloy. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, Newton published his famous experimentum crucis, in which he claimed that light is heterogeneous and is composed of rays with different refrangibilities. Experiments, especially the crucial experiment, were important for justifying Newton’s theory of light, and eventually his theory of color. A century later, Goethe conducted a series of experiments on the nature of color, especially in contradistinction to Newton, and he defended his research with a methodological principle formulated in “Der Versuch als Vermittler.” Goethe’s principle (...) included two elements: a series of experiments and resultant higher empirical evidence, which functioned as mediator between the objective and the subjective . Although the notion of experimentum crucis became popular among scientists for reconstructing experimental research and for justifying theories, especially for rhetorical purposes, Newton’s justification of his theory of light and color is best reconstructed in terms of Goethe’s methodological principle. Finally, Goethe’s principle has important consequences for the contemporary philosophical underdetermination thesis. (shrink)

A contemporary to Thomas Aquinas in Latin Catholic Italy, and with a parallel motivation to stabilize each his own civilization in its flux and storm, 'Abd Allah Baydawi of Ilkhan Persia wrote a compact and memorable Arabic Summation of Islamic Natural and Traditional Theology. With the same strokes of his pen he presented the Islamic version of the Science of Theological Statement, bafflingly called "Kalam" while familiarly embracing "Theology". Baydawi's Tawali'al-Anwar min Matal'al-Anzar (Rays of Dawnlight Outstreaming from Far Horizons of (...) Logical Reasoning), with Mahmud Isfahani's commentary, is a formidably clear logical and mental vision of mankind's final completion as a spiritual structure in Islam. Reality - in nature's Possible mode, in an apodictic Divine mode, and in humanity's heroic Prophetic mode - comprises man's Worldview and is the Theme of the Baydawi/Isfahani discourse. The Edifice of Man and Humanity's evanescent Evidence within it are both hugely arresting and moving. The print edition is available as a set of two volumes (9789004121027). (shrink)

The crystallization behaviour of Fe 70.8 Nb 3.7 Cu 1 Al 2.7 Mn 0.7 Si 13.5 B 7.6 alloy prepared in the form of amorphous ribbons by melt-spinning technique was studied using differential scanning calorimetry and the temperature variation in resistivity. An X-ray diffaction and transmission electron microscopy study showed the formation of f -Fe and/or Fe 3 nanoparticles after the first stage of crystallization. The activation energy for this nanophase formation was 68 kcal mol m 1 . The brittleness (...) of the alloy increased with the formation of nanoparticles after heat treatment. Superior soft magnetic properties were achieved when the material was heat treated at 790 K for 15 min. The particle size at the optimum heat treatment condition for superior soft magnetic properties was found to be 6.0 - 0.5 nm which was less compared than for the Fe-Nb-Cu-Si-B system. The observed coercivity value at the optimum heat treatment condition was found to be 0.32 A m m 1 . The presence of Al in the alloy reduced the particle size and the magnetic anisotropy energy of the system, which resulted in superior soft magnetic properties of the heat-treated materials. (shrink)

This chapter shows how al-Kindī interweaves ideas from Greek cosmology to give a theory that can explain the efficacy of astrology and how God’s providence is dispersed by means of heavenly influence. A concrete example is found in al-Kindī’s works on meteorology, since he thinks that weather is produced by celestial causation. The mechanics of this causation are explained differently in different works, which leads to a consideration of the authenticity of On Rays, which is ascribed to al-Kindī, and its (...) place in his corpus. Finally, the chapter considers whether al-Kindī’s account commits him to determinism, and whether he thinks universal causal determinism is compatible with human freedom. (shrink)

This study aims to look at the role of the practice of excellence strategies in education in achieving sustainable competitive advantage for the Higher educational institutions of the faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, a model, and the study considered the competitive advantage of educational institutions stems from the impact on the level of each student, employee, and the institution. The study was based on the premise that the development of strategies for excellence in education, (...) and its implementation is a vital important prerequisite to achieve sustainable competitive advantage in higher educational institutions. The study followed a systematic exploratory descriptive methodology through review of the theoretical literature, and the adoption of the experience of the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as a model for its unique experience in the field of excellence in education. The study results showed that the most important are: There is a strong correlation between the level of exercising excellence strategies in education and the achievement of higher educational institutions to the sustainable competitive advantage. The results include a general required number of important sub results on the subject of the model - Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology at Al-Azhar University in Gaza as follows: - The student considered the academic focus of the operation in the development process of the workers’ skills, particularly academics at the university helps to distinguish students and increase the employment rate after graduation. - The existence of consistency in development efforts and quality improvement for all three levels (student, employee, and the university), and this contributes to the Faculty excellence. - The Faculty has been able to achieve competitive advantages by offering excellent services without harming the efficiency, and this alone is a great success because improving service properties requires great investments, which negatively affect the continued institutional development. The study also reached a set of recommendations as follows: - The need to exercise excellence strategies in education, excellence reward at the national level, and those higher educational institutions follow the criteria for measuring the competitive advantages of its institutions always. - There is a need to increase efforts to implement programs of excellence, the allocation of adequate time, reward outstanding efforts as well. There is a necessity for each faculty to achieve competitive advantage and sustainability, using the general philosophies of competitive advantage, but with a different strategically content from what is in the private commercial sector, it reflects the Faculties mission and objectives, depending on making improvements and excellence in processes that ensure the safety of its outputs. As well as the need to find a balance between the work of teaching and research work of the faculty members, this has important implications regarding the criteria used in the process of excellence evaluation. The study recommended the adoption of strategies for excellence in education on a national public policy level mainly in the processes of change in higher education institutions. The need to support the existence of a common understanding of the efforts of excellence to create a general culture that appreciates excellence in faculties and universities. This underlines the need for transparent, fair rewards systems, to encourage innovation in education. The need to conduct a comprehensive surveys on the graduates of faculties and universities including the areas of employment and skills, because that will give accurate indications of the graduates and will help to establish a link to a more precise about the relationship of excellence strategies with the competitive advantages. (shrink)

© Ginn et al. 2016.The indexing methods currently used for serial femtosecond crystallography were originally developed for experiments in which crystals are rotated in the X-ray beam, providing significant three-dimensional information. On the other hand, shots from both X-ray free-electron lasers and serial synchrotron crystallography experiments are still images, in which the few three-dimensional data available arise only from the curvature of the Ewald sphere. Traditional synchrotron crystallography methods are thus less well suited to still image data processing. Here, a (...) new indexing method is presented with the aim of maximizing information use from a still image given the known unit-cell dimensions and space group. Efficacy for cubic, hexagonal and orthorhombic space groups is shown, and for those showing some evidence of diffraction the indexing rate ranged from 90% to 151%. Here, the indexing rate refers to the number of lattices indexed per image. (shrink)

al-juzʼ 1. [Without special title] -- al-juzʼ 2. al-Masmūḥ wa-al-mamnūʻ fī firāsh al-zawjīyah.

Abstract— This study aimed to identify the degree of use of the capabilities of decision-support systems in Palestinian institutions higher education, Aqsa University in Gaza - a case study. The study used a analytical descriptive approach, and the researchers used the of questionnaire tool to collect the data, the researchers using stratified random sample distributed (150) questioners to the study population and (126) was obtained back with rate of 84%. The study showed that the most important results are: that senior (...) management supports the existence of decision support systems and that there is approval by the respondents on the paragraphs of the use of the capabilities of decision support systems in general. And that there are no significant differences between the averages of the answers of respondents differences about the degree of use of decision support systems capabilities attributed to personal data. The study also concluded a series of recommendations including: increasing the adoption of the senior management decision support in their decision-making systems. And increased regulatory attention to the potential available to decision support systems directly to the senior management in the Palestinian universities in the Gaza Strip. There is an increased interest in the physical and technical possibilities available for the use of decision support systems. There is an increased interest in human potential available for the use of decision support systems. Investment of information available to universities in building the capacities of integration techniques and other information technology capabilities. The empowerment of human resources in universities and participating in making decisions concerning the construction of the capabilities of information technology. (shrink)

This is an era when the Islamic World is making a range of attempts to redefine itself and to grapple with the challenges of modernity. Many schools of thought have emerged which seek to position modern Islam within the context of a rapidly changing contemporary world. Exploring and defining the relationship between religion and knowledge, Ismail Rafi Al-Faruqi, a distinguished 20th century Arab-American scholar of Islam, formulated ideas which have made substantial contributions to the Islam-and-modernity discourse. His review of the (...) interaction between Islam and knowledge examines the philosophy behind this relationship, and the ways in which Islam can relate to our understanding of science, the arts, architecture, technology and other knowledge-based fields of enquiry. This book includes contributions from Seyyed Hossein Nasr, John Esposito, Charles Fletcher and others, and will prove an essential reference point for scholars of Islam and students of philosophy and comparative religion. (shrink)

The Essence of Reality consists of one hundred brief chapters interspersed with Qurʼanic verses, prophetic sayings, Sufi maxims, and poetry. The book takes readers on a philosophical journey, with expositions of questions including the problem of the eternity of the world; the nature of God's essence and attributes; the concepts of "before" and "after"; and the soul's relationship to the body.