6 research outputs found
Ghayat al-amani and the life and times of al-Hadi Yahya b. al-Husayn: an introduction, newly edited text and translation with detailed annotation
No full textThe thesis is anchored upon a text extracted from an important 11th / 17th century Yemeni historical work. This text deals primarily with al-Hādī ilā 'I-Haqq, the founder of the Zaydī Imamate in the Yemen that lasted well over a thousand years. AI-Hādīs imamate, of considerable significance in itself, also coincides with one of the most turbulent periods of early Yemeni mediaeval history. The- edited Arabic text, with its accompanying apparatus criticus. Is to be found at the opposite end of this volume. The Introduction considers various aspects of Imam al-Hadī’s life, religious ideas and aspirations and matters directly connected with the edited text and the work of which it forms a part. Among the most important subjects discussed are the MSS used in the production of the edited text, the problem concerning the authorship of Ghāyat al-amānī and the relationship of the latter work to Anbā' al-zaman. A short biography of al-Hādī is provided, together with a treatment of the historical background to ai-Hādīs imamate. The introduction also describes the editorial method followed with regard to the text, and certain key personal names and toponyms are dealt with there. The method employed by the author of the Ghāyat is to record the events of any one year by Itself. I have translated one year at a time and then followed it by the annotations appertaining to it. It is hoped that by means of these annotations. (some of which through necessity are quite detailed ), the text will be better understood. The numerous personages, tribal names and toponyms are considered, as well as problems concerning points of chronology and various matters of historical and religious significance. Specific comment is made upon certain interesting terms or any unusual or striking vocabulary. The thesis concludes with maps, genealogical tables and a comprehensive bibliography
The Arab Gulf countries and the Arab- Israeli conflict;: the linkages and dynamics (1970-2000)
No full textThis thesis examines the changing linkages and dynamics of the relationship between the Arab Gulf countries and the Arab-Israeli conflict through the period of 1970-2000. The Arab Gulf countries' level of involvement in supporting the Arabs and Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli conflict diminished throughout the period of study. The thesis explains this diminishing role by discussing the impact of the developments of international struggle for influence in the Gulf as well as the Israeli ambitions and relations to the Gulf region, largely expressed through the Israeli relationship with Iran under the Shah. The thesis shows that the years 1973, 1979 and 1990 formed important turning points for international influence in the region. These turning points influenced on the level of the Arab Gulf countries' involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Throughout the seventies, the Arab Gulf countries played an active role in supporting the Arab side in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The clearest expression of this support was the implementation of the oil embargo against the West during the October 1973 War. The eighties witnessed the birth of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the formation of which symbolized the emerging security challenges within the Gulf region. These security challenges represented by the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq war and the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan exhausted most of the capabilities and efforts of the Arab Gulf countries. Their focus and attention shifted away from the Arab-Israeli conflict, in spite of the serious and dramatic developments in that conflict. The repercussions of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 resulted in a further diminishment of the role of the Arab Gulf countries in backing the Palestinians in the Arab-Israeli conflict. Only after September 2000 and the beginning of the Second Palestinian Intifada did the Arab Gulf countries again play a vital role, by means of financial, political and media support. The thesis explains the linkages between security in the Gulf and the Arab- Israeli conflict. It examines the hypothesis that a reciprocal relationship explaining the level and type of Arab Gulf countries involvement in the Arab-Israeli conflict has existed throughout the period of the study
Inhibitory Effect of Bacteriophages Isolated from Sewage Water in the City of Kirkuk on some Types of Human Pathogenic Bacteria
No full textMost approaches to combat antibiotic resistant bacteria concentrate on discovering new antibiotics or modifying existing ones. However, one of the most promising alternatives is the use of bacteriophages. This study was focused on the isolation of bacteriophages that are specific to some of commonly human pathogens namely E. coli, Streptococcus pyogenes, Staphylococcus aureus, Proteus mirabilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Salmonella spp. and Klebsiella pneumoniae. These bacteriophages were isolated from sewages that were collected from four different locations in Kirkuk City. Apart from S. pyogenes, bacteriophages specific to all tested bacteria were successfully isolated and tested for their effectiveness by spot test. The most effective bacteriophages that were isolated from sewages and sewage water of Al-Jumhori Hospital compared to other sites. It is concluded that the sewage water of hospitals represents a perfect environment for these bacteriophages
Intellectual property laws and Islam in Malaysia.
No full textPhDThis study is undertaken on the premise that Islam and Islamic law is to be taken into
serious consideration in any future legislative reform of laws in Malaysia. Islam being
the religion of the country and the strong religious sentiment of the Muslims (who
form the majority in Malaysia) cannot be overlooked or dismissed lightly by the
legislators in Malaysia. Reformation of intellectual property laws is timely, as we are
now approaching to the dateline set by GATF-Trips agreement which aim is to
improve our standard of intellectual property protection. This study seeks to analyze
and evaluate the current legislation pertaining to intellectual property in Malaysia in
terms of the philosophy and rules governing the existence, ownership and exercise of
these rights and their consistency and inconsistency with Islam and Islamic law. The
main objective of this study is to prove that a coherent and logical conceptual
framework of ownership of intellectual property can be derived from an Islamic
perspective which not only offers the basis of rights but also defines the scope of
these rights. From the point of ownership of rights, support can be obtained from the
normative framework of property rights within the traditional classification of 'mal'
(property) and 'haqq al-milkiyyah' (ownership rights) under Islamic law. From the
point of exercise of rights, the exact scope can be defined from the analysis of
fundamental concepts which have been developed by Muslim jurists. It has been
established that Islam and Islamic law offers a sound and systematic paradigm, which
in deeper analysis, can satisfy both our current obligations under international
treatises, as well as our responsibility to practise our religion to the fullest
Assessing malaria attributed mortality in west and southern Africa
No full textMalaria has persistently remained a serious health and socio-economic problem in developing nations particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). There are approximately 500 million cases of malaria each year and close to one million deaths occurring mainly among children under five years. Developing countries spend a reasonable proportion of their gross domestic product (GDP) on malaria which in the end hinders their levels of development.
World Health Organizations (WHO) and partners through the Roll Back Malaria initiative (RBM) have targeted vector control, health promotion and case management (using rapid diagnostic tests and treatment with Artemisinin combination therapy) in order reduce malaria morbidity and mortality cases. Since 2002, funds for promoting malaria control activities have increased exponentially in SSA. Major donors include presidential malaria initiative (PMI) and Global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria (GFATM). Countries which have scaled up the recommended malaria control strategies such as insecticides-treat net (ITN) and treatment of confirmed cases have reported a decline in both morbidity and mortality especially among children. However, these statistics are based on health facilities data and yet in most developing countries many deaths occur at home and are never recorded due to inefficient vital registration systems. Monitoring the progress of such interventions requires reliable sources of data on both the transmission and infection outcome.
In malaria endemic areas, people acquire natural immunity during the early years of their life after getting exposed to repeated infections. This is observed from the reductions in the number of severe malaria-related morbidity and mortality cases especially in children >5 years. Due to the current undertakings that are aimed at reducing malaria exposure, there are concerns about shifting the disease burden to older children but the required to data to monitor this are not readily available in SSA. Low income countries have resorted to health and demographic surveillance systems (HDSS) to monitor routinely population changes and health outcomes within a defined geographical area.
In 2000, the INDEPTH, a network of HDSS integrated the Malaria Transmission Intensity and Mortality Burden Across Africa (MTIMBA) project into selected sites’ routine activities in order to assess the transmission-malaria mortality relationship taking into account the current interventions. Mortality data and other demographic characteristics were extracted from routinely collected HDSS databases. The entomological data were collected every fortnight from randomly sampled compounds over the 3 years MTIMBA period.
The MTIMBA project generated large geostatistical data that are correlated in space and time. Furthermore, the project captured longitudinal mosquito data that were characterized by many zeros especially during the dry periods. The zeros are due empty traps from a compound or when all the captured mosquitoes are not infectious. Appropriate data analysis therefore should apply models that account for spatial-temporal correlation and the excess zeros in order to avoid over or underestimation of parameters. Zero-inflated geostatistical models account for spatial-temporal correlation by introducing location-specific and time interval random effects which creates more parameters to estimate. Bayesian models implemented via Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation (MCMC) addresses fit of highly parameterized models.
This work applied zero-inflated Bayesian models to estimate malaria attributable mortality across all age-groups using large, correlated and sparse data collected from Navrongo and Manhiça HDSS between 2001 and 2004. The contributions of this thesis were (i) the description of the HDSS data characteristics and relevant methods for analysis; (ii) the spatially explicit estimates of malaria transmission intensity at monthly intervals; and (iii) the relationship between all-cause mortality and malaria transmission intensity across all age categories.
Chapter 2 described the characteristics of the MTIMBA data. These are large geostatistical, temporal, seasonal and zero-inflated data. The mortality and mosquito data were misaligned because they were captured at different compounds and time periods. Zero-inflated Bayesian spatio-temporal models are the state-of-art in handling such data. The rigorous statistical process was demonstrated by modelling sporozoite rate (SR) data from Manhiça HDSS. The analysis of the MTIMBA data was used as an avenue for building SSA capacity through course work, seminars and mentorship. Site-specific analyses are still on-going. However, the project generated data that is relevant for assessing within and between site malaria transmission heterogeneity.
The Navrongo malaria exposure surfaces described in chapter 3 were obtained from zero-inflated geostatistical models fitting separately the binomial SR data and negative binomial count data by mosquito species. All the models included space and time correlation in addition to the Climate, environmental and seasonality covariates. The entomological inoculation rate (EIR) estimates were derived as a product of predicted man biting rate and SR. Observed EIR in this district was >100 infective bites/person/year. Distance to water to bodies, day temperatures and vegetation were the main predictors of mosquito densities for the two species. The EIR maps clearly indicated that the temporal heterogeneity was stronger than the spatial variation in this area. The same situation was also observed from the analyses of the two MTIMBA sites of Rufiji (Tanzania) and Kisumu (Kenya).
Monthly malaria exposure surfaces (chapter 3) were linked to the nearest compounds where mortality was observed as described in chapter 4. Time to death data were split at monthly intervals in order to generate Bernoulli and binomial data that were modelled via logistic regression formulations. Spatio-temporal models were fitted to obtain age-specific mortality risk estimates. The model considered 2 covariates; natural logarithm transformed EIR estimates with their measurement errors and age. ITN variable was only included in neonates, post-neonates and child models. The analysis showed a positive log-linear relationship between all-cause mortality and malaria exposure in all the age groups but the association was only important among children (1-4 years) and people >= 60 years. ITN use showed a protective effect among all the under five children, confirming what was observed in Rufiji and Kisumu HDSS.
The methods used in estimating malaria exposure surfaces and mortality risks in chapters 3 and 4 were extended to Manhiça HDSS (Mozambique) data to describe the mortality-malaria transmission relationship for this area (chapter 5). The spatio-temporal age-specific models considered EIR estimates with their measurement errors (to account for the predictive uncertainty) and age as model covariates.
The distance to the nearest water bodies was the only important common predictor of An. funestus and An. gambiae mosquito densities. Malaria transmission intensity declined consistently in this area. The Model-based results indicated a positive log-linear relationship between all-cause mortality and malaria exposure across all age groups namely; the neonates (0-28 days), post-neonates (1-11months), children (1-4years), young people (5-14 years), adults (15- 59years) and old age (>=60 years).
This work contributes to further understand of malaria-mortality relationships. A positive association between mortality and malaria exposure among the under fives is consistent with what was reported from the MTIMBA sites of Rufiji and Kisumu. Completion of the remaining site-specific analyses followed by a meta-analysis will make a great contribution to malaria epidemiology. Further work however, should consider cohort analysis in order to ascertain whether malaria control interventions have caused a shift in the age of acquired immunity
Modelling the seasonal and spatial variation of malaria transmission in relation to mortality in Africa
No full textAbout three billion people worldwide are estimated to be at risk of malaria transmission. In developing countries, malaria is believed to be a major cause of morbidity and mortality, mostly in children under five years. It is among the indirect causes of maternal mortality and infants’ deaths due to low-birth-weights. Malaria brings huge economic burden due to number of days lost during sickness and deaths, sustaining a vicious cycle of disease and poverty in sub Saharan Africa (SSA) and high attribute of disability-adjusted life years.
A number of malaria control interventions to reduce intensity of transmission have been successfully implemented in the regions of SSA, however, elimination of malaria is still a dream in many developing countries today. Failures in global eradication are related to resistance in insecticides and anti-malarial drugs, and health systems related factors. The Roll Back Malaria (RBM) partnership reinforced new strategies to combat malaria with long-term goal of eradicating the disease globally. This was facilitated by increasing funding for malaria research, improve multi disciplinary initiatives and make malaria among the main agenda of all international health and development forums. The reduction in mortality, especially in children has been reported recently and is associated with achievements in intervention strategies, improvements in malaria diagnosis and treatment. However, poor natural acquisition of malaria immunity in children as a consequence of weak or no exposure is a major epidemiological concern and brings a fear of higher mortality rates or shifting of age of death to older children. Understanding and quantify links between transmission, intervention, immunity and mortality is key for sustainable progress towards malaria control targets.
A comprehensive analysis of information on malaria transmission, vital events, drivers of transmission and mortality-related risk factors is required to achieve that. Lack of vital registration systems in developing countries hinders availability of appropriate data to conduct such analysis. Establishment of Demographic Surveillance Systems (DSS) in many developing countries aims to fill these information gaps. One of the initiatives integrated within DSSs is the Malaria Transmission Intensity and Mortality Burden across Africa (MTIMBA) project. The project compiled a database of mosquito collections at selected sites in Africa over a large number of locations, using standardized methodologies for a period of three years. The entomological parameters were linked with routinely monitored vital events within the DSS. The MTIMBA database is the most comprehensive entomological database ever collected in Africa which allows studying spatial-temporal variation in malaria transmission in relation to mortality.
Malaria is an environmental disease hence transmission varies with climate as it modifies population, survival, distribution and infectivity of malaria vectors. Quantification of association between climate and transmission is important to allow prediction of risk even in areas that field data cannot be easily obtained. Development in geographical information systems (GIS) and availability of remote sensing (RS) data facilitates availability of environment and climate data at high space and time resolutions allowing accurate estimation of outcome-factor relationship.
However, DSS data are large, sparse, zero-inflated and are characterized by seasonal patterns, spatial and temporal correlations. Standard models assume independence between observations, an assumption which do not hold for correlated data, hence utilizing these models might result into biased estimates. Geostatistical modeling of large, sparse and zero inflated space-time data is computational challenging specifically in the estimation of the spatial processes. The spatial correlation is accounted by introducing location-specific random effect parameters which are assumed to arise from a spatial process quantified by a multivariate normal distribution. The models are highly parameterized and their fit is computationally intensive. Bayesian computational algorithms such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) can be used to fit these models. Estimation of the spatial process requires inversion of the covariance matrix at each simulation point. The dimension of the matrix increases exponentially with number of locations and the inversion becomes infeasible when the size is too large. Recent techniques overcome this problem by approximating the spatial process from a subset of locations. These methods have been applied on Gaussian outcomes observed over a grid. Extension and formulation of rigorous methods to efficient model MTIMBA data are needed to allow precise prediction of malaria transmission at locations with mortality data to enhance studying the association. Lastly, seasonality in climatic conditions which introduces seasonal patterns in transmission and mortality data, should be accounted for when modelling such data.
The objectives of this thesis were to i) develop Bayesian geostatistical models to analyze very large and sparse geostatistical and temporal non-Gaussian data with seasonal patterns and ii) apply these models to (a) estimate space-time heterogeneity in malaria transmission (b) assess mortality variations between different ages during the first year of life while adjusting for seasonality and (c) determine the relation between transmission intensity and risk of mortality in children and adult population after taking into account control interventions. This work used an extract of MTIMBA data from the Rufiji DSS (RDSS) collected between October 2001 and September 2004.
Evaluation of approaches to capture seasonal pattern is discussed in Chapter 2 and applied to estimate mortality peaks at different stages of infant life. In Chapter 3, models approximating the spatial process from a subset of locations were developed to assess effect of climate, seasonal and spatial pattern of sporozoite rate (SR) of An. funestus and An. gambiae in RDSS. A rigorous approach to analyze malaria transmission data using Entomology Inoculation Rate (EIR) data, which is the product of mosquito density and SR, is discussed in Chapter 4. Zero-inflated models were used to account for over-dispersion and zero-inflation in the data. High resolution EIR estimates were produced for the RDSS. Exposure surfaces obtained in Chapter 4, were aligned with mortality events to assess the relationship between all-cause mortality and malaria transmission. Geostatistical Bernoulli discrete-time regression models adjusted for age and ITN possession were used for that analysis. The results of these analyses are presented in Chapters 5 and 6. The EIR was incorporated in the model as a covariate with measure of uncertainty.
This work is a building block on the insight and understanding of association between malaria transmission and all-cause mortality. The strength of results of this work relies on EIR estimates predicted at high spatial (household level) and temporal resolution by employing rigorous geostatistical models fitted on large entomological data. The better exposure estimates obtained are able to more accurately estimate the mortality-transmission relation
