This book presents three of the works of Abdu'l-Bahá, son of the founder of the Bahá'i Faith, dealing with social and political issues.00In 'The Secret of Divine Civilization' (1875) Abdu'l-Bahá supports the administrative and broader social reforms of Mirzá Hosayn Khán, but looks mainly for organic reform through the efforts of Iranian intellectuals to waken and educate the masses. In this work, Abdu'l-Bahá gives virtuous and progressive Islamic clerics a leading role among these intellectuals, indeed most (...) of his appeals are directed specifically to them. 'A Traveller's Narrative' (1889/90) is an authoritative statement of the broad lines of Bahá'i social and political thinking. 'The Art of Governance' (1892/93) was written as Iran entered a pre-revolutionary phase, and ideas that we recognise today as the precursors of political Islam were spreading. It sets out the principles underlying the ideal relationship between religion and politics and between the government and the people.00In addition to presenting the first parallel text translations of these works, the Persian texts incorporate notes on variants in the early published sources. An introduction outlines the intellectual and political landscape from which Abdu'l-Bahá wrote, and in which his expected readers lived. (shrink)

From the writings of Baháʼuʼlláh -- From the writings of the Bāb -- From the writings of ʻAbduʼl-Bahá.

This book advocates for a sensible balance between the spiritual and material aspects of life.

Retrieving our spiritual heritage: a challenge of our time -- Spiritual foundation of human rights -- Response to the president of Ireland -- World peace and interreligious understanding -- Education as transformation: a Baha'i model of education for unity -- Globalization and the Baha'i community in the Muslim world -- Unity of vision and ethic: values and the workplace -- Environmental ethics: a Baha'i perspective -- 'Abdu'l-Baha and the spiritual foundation of the American dream -- United Nations and world order (...) -- Ethics of globalization: a Baha'i perspective -- Opening of the academic mind: the challenges facing a culture in crisis -- Heritage: poetry and archeology as the common language of the past, the present, and the future -- Address given before the House of Lords. (shrink)

A far-reaching account of what is meant by the human spirit, and its relevance to the worldwide efforts being made to meet the challenges that define this historical moment. Notions of identity, grounded in socially constructed conceptualizations of race, gender, class, and nationality continue to pose serious threats to our collective future. At the same time, everything that had once been associated with the human spirit is often understood today only in terms of neurobiology and cognitive science. Yet if the (...) twenty-first century is to be any different from the century just ended, the protection and development of the human spirit will have to emerge as an appropriate focus for judging the moral legitimacy of human acts, social policy, or cultural or religious practices. In a Bahá'í-inspired approach to these issues, the unique perspectives contained in the Bahá'í writings are explored alongside the rich diversity of other philosophical, epistemic, and moral traditions that have contributed to our understanding of the nature and needs of the human spirit over the ages. (shrink)

One of the most important rights of the child organized by Islamic law is the right of custody, and th performance of this right is shared between the spouses in the event of marriage. But if the marriage ends and the family contact is dissolved, the first to take custody of the child is his mother, unless there is an emergency that her right to so is waived. If the custody period ends, the rivalry between the parents intensifies, both of (...) which want to take the child to his side. Then who decides the fate of the child in this period and does his choice have a role in resolving the dispute. And what if he chooses him together or the child chooses someone else or refrain from the child's choice to keep the child with him. This research comes to answer these and other questions? by speaking briefly about the legality of custody and it's general principles. And then the scholar sayings that the child has the right to choose between his parents at the end of custody period, to give their evidence, to discuss them, to weigh these statements, and to make a statement that is applicable in most famous personal status laws in the Arab countries. (shrink)

This paper proposes a Multi-Agent based Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) Framework for the Traveling salesman problem (MAPSOFT). The framework is a deployment of the recently proposed intelligent multi-agent based PSO model by the authors. MAPSOFT is made up of groups of agents that interact with one another in a coordinated search effort within their environment and the solution space. A discrete version of the original multi-agent model is presented and applied to the Travelling Salesman Problem. Based on the simulation results (...) obtained, it was observed that agents retrospectively decide on their next moves based on consistent better fitness values obtained from present and prospective neighborhoods, and by reflecting back to previous behaviors and sticking to historically better results. These overall attributes help enhance the conventional PSO by providing more intelligence and autonomy within the swarm and thus contributed to the emergence of good results for the studied problem. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Session 1. The blossoming of the culture of confusion and the Church : selections of a post-truth mindset -- Session 2. Confusion's consequences -- getting freedom wrong -- Session 3. Clarity about freedom -- Session 4. Clarity about human dignity -- Session 5. Clarity about sexuality, gender, and identity -- Session 6. Clarity about science and faith -- Session 7. Clarity about religious pluralism -- Session 8. The son through fog : clarity's hope -- Closing words.

Increasingly, Western culture embraces confusion as a virtue and decries certainty as a sin. Those who are confused about sexuality and identity are viewed as heroes. Those who are confused about morality are progressive pioneers. Those who are confused about spirituality are praised as tolerant. Conversely, those who express certainty about any of these issues are seen as bigoted, oppressive, arrogant, or intolerant. This cultural phenomenon led the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary to name "post-truth" their word of the (...) year in 2016. How can Christians offer truth and clarity to a world that shuns both? By accurately describing the Culture of Confusion and how it has affected our society, author Abdu Murray seeks to awaken Westerners to the plight we find ourselves in. He also challenges Christians to consider how they have played a part in fostering the Culture of Confusion through bad arguments, unwise labeling, and emotional attacks. Ultimately, Saving Truth provides arguments from a Christian perspective for the foundations of truth and how those foundations apply to sexuality, identity, morality, and spirituality. For those enmeshed in the culture of confusion, the book offers a way to untangle oneself and find hope in the clarity that Christ offers. (shrink)

Rewriting and translation of Anis al-muttaqin, Arabic manuscripts work of Syaikh Abdus Samad al-Falimbani on sufism, science, and Islamic ethics, from the collection of the National Library of Indonesia.

Criticism of Sairu s-Salikin, an old Indonesian manuscript on ethics in Islam.

Background: The rapid spread of COVID-19 infection has led countries across the globe to take various measures to contain the outbreak, including the closure of Universities. Forcing University students to stay at home has created enormous stress and uncertainty in their daily life.Objective: This study aimed to assess the perceived stress and coping strategies among undergraduate health science students of Jimma University amid the COVID-19 outbreak.Materials and methods: An online cross-sectional survey was conducted involving 337 undergraduate health science students from (...) August to September 5, 2020. The perceived stress scale -10 and Brief-COPE scale were used to assess the level of stress and coping strategies, respectively. Statistical Package for Social Science Version 22 was employed for data analysis. Logistic regression was conducted to identify predictors of high perceived stress.Results: The overall mean [±standard deviation ] age of the participants was 22.88 years. The mean PSS score was 22.16, and high perceived stress was reported in 121 participants. The overall mean coping score was 72.34, and approach coping was the predominantly used strategy for coping with stress. Personal perception of being stressed by the daily number of COVID-19 cases/deaths in Ethiopia, rare online talk/chat with friends, presence of confusion due to the inconsistent strategies developed by the health/government authorities in view of the scientific recommendations, perception of self/family members being at risk of getting sick, decreased household income following the COVID-19 pandemic, practicing denial, self-blame, planning, and religion as means of coping with stress were associated with high perceived stress.Conclusion: Over one-third of the participants had a high level of perceived stress, and the majority of them were practicing effective means of coping with stress. The authors recommend that the hosting University in collaboration with the concerned bodies develop innovative strategies to improve the psychological well-being of the students. (shrink)

SummaryIn Ethiopia, despite some recent improvements, the health and nutritional status of children is very poor. A better understanding of the main socioeconomic determinants of child health and nutrition is essential to address the problem and make appropriate interventions. In the present study, an attempt is made to explore the effect of maternal characteristics on the health and nutritional status of under-five children using the 2005 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey. The health and nutritional status of children are measured using (...) the two widely used anthropometric indicators height-for-age and weight-for-height. In the ordinary least squares estimation, it is observed that maternal characteristics have a significant impact on child health and nutritional status. The magnitudes of the coefficients, however, are found to slightly increase when maternal education is instrumented in the 2SLS estimation. Moreover, in the quantile regression estimation, the impacts of maternal characteristics are observed to vary between long-term and current child health and nutritional status. (shrink)

Study of Brahmavidāśiravāda of Mādhava, work on Advaita philosophy.

This book closely examines our commonly held beliefs about human suffering, and offers unique insights into God's role in why we suffer. Dr. Perri critically examines what it means to be human from a Judeo-Christian perspective, and extrapolates from the work of Carl Gustav Jung showing a deeply complex development of human transcendence in human suffering. On an interpersonal level, Dr. Perri elaborates on the work of Martin Buber and Emanuel Levinas and shows how our suffering can be shared and (...) lessened by our unconditionality and presence for the other. Scriptural passages are quoted from both the Hebrew and New Testament texts, and are used to depict the suffering of humankind as seen in the face of Job. It was this face, according to Perri, that Jesus saw in the faces of those He came to redeem, and that ultimately brought Him to the crucifix of redemption. Dr. Perri challenges Sartre's position that our existence precedes our essence, and draws on the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Christian theology in this regard. He further elaborates a neurodevelopmental paradigm that creates essence as the basis of our freedom to choose. This book can be read and studied by both professionals in the helping and healing professions, and lay persons seeking to better understand our suffering, and how to better help those who suffer. Dr. Perri offers specific ways in how to be present for those who suffer, how to read and receive the hidden language of human suffering, and how to use silence as a communication skill. (shrink)

Study on the view of Aurobindo Ghose on philosophy of education.

Data analytics, machine intelligence, and other cognitive algorithms have been employed in predicting various types of diseases in health care. The revolution of artificial neural networks in the medical discipline emerged for data-driven applications, particularly in the healthcare domain. It ranges from diagnosis of various diseases, medical image processing, decision support system, and disease prediction. The intention of conducting the research is to ascertain the impact of parameters on diabetes data to predict whether a particular patient has a disease or (...) not. This paper develops an improved ANN model trained using an artificial backpropagation scaled conjugate gradient neural network algorithm to predict diabetes effectively. For validating the performance of the proposed model, we conduct a large set of experiments on a Pima Indian Diabetes dataset using accuracy and mean squared error as evaluation metrics. We use different number of neurons in the hidden layer, ranging from 5 to 50, to train the ANN models. The experimental results show that the ABP-SCGNN model, containing 20 neurons, attains 93% accuracy on the validation set, which is higher than using the other ANNs models. This result confirms the model’s effectiveness and efficiency in predicting diabetes disease from the required data attributes. (shrink)

The draft Code of Conduct for Research is an important initiative towards assisting the scientific community in complying with the provisions of the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA). However, its approach towards cross-border data sharing should be reconsidered to clarify the ambiguities inherent in the legal requirements for the cross-border sharing of health data in the POPIA. These ambiguities include the concept of ‘transfer of information’, the application of adequacy as a legal mechanism for transfer, the (...) nature of consent for cross-border sharing and the scope of the recipient third party. We suggest that the draft Code of Conduct for Research can be improved by: Explaining or defining the concept of ‘transfer of information’ and when it applies to cross-border sharing in research Clarifying the application of adequacy as a legal mechanism for transfer vis-à-vis the other alternatives Expanding on the interpretation and application of consent as a legal mechanism for cross-border transfers Expanding the category of persons who may be recipients of personal information in a third country. (shrink)