45 research outputs found
Hallinnon umpikuja : retoriikkaa ja realiteetteja kansalaisjärjestöjen ja valtion suhteissa Bangladeshissa
Get PDFAn analytical study of the theatre of the Syrian playwright Saadallah Wannous, with particular emphasis on the plays written after the 1967 war
Get PDFThis study is an examination of the life and work of
the Syrian dramatist Saadallah Wannous (1941-1997). Wannous's name is virtually unknown in the West; only two academic studies of any significance have appeared in English on this eminent and challenging writer, who was honoured by UNESCO at the end of his life. Even in the Arab world his standing rests largely upon his celebrity as a cultural icon, since professional performances of his plays are rare due to the decline of the theatre in the region, and little attention has been devoted to theatre studies by Arab academics. The two studies in English do not attempt to be comprehensive but focus on particular stages of Wannous's career. This study is, therefore, the first to encompass the full range of Wannous's work. To do so it combines an account of his life which seeks to comprehend the various forces that shaped his thinking with an analysis of his dramatic works. The study concentrates on the plays written in the years following the trauma inflicted on the Arab world by the catastrophe of their
defeat in the Arab-Israeli war of June, 1967. Wannous's career can be divided into three phases: the immature plays of his young manhood which are influenced by European models and generally focus on the social condition of the individual; his middle period - the `theatre of politicisation', when his Marxist politics were the main
factor shaping his drama; and his late works, which are characterised by an extraordinary freedom of thought and expression. The introduction places Wannous in his historical and sociocultural context and provides a brief background explaining the literary and theatrical traditions of the Arab world that influenced his activity as a dramatist. Each phase is then examined in turn and the plays are analysed in accordance with the focus of the study. This means that emphasis is given to the middle period,
but no significant work is neglected. The study aims to trace the trajectory of Wannous's development using a
variety of sources: the plays themselves, Wannous's own journalism and critical writings, interviews with his widow, his friends and colleagues, and numerous
journals, books and articles, some of which contain
important interviews with Wannous that shed light on his thought and ways of working. Use is also made of the
two studies mentioned above. The study shows that Wannous's theatre was influenced by the key political, social and cultural developments of his time, and that he
constantly sought to find forms that would express those transformations in dramatic terms
Jordan Storytelling and Elias Farkouh’s ‘Who Ploughs the Sea?’ Named Story
Get PDFAbstract
It is known that the short story emerged very recently in World Literature. This literary genre, which was put forward by American authors in the second half of the 19. Century, began to spread worldwide by Russian writers. The first example of the short story genre in Arab countries is the work named On the Train (fi al-Qitar) published by Muhammad Taymūr in 1917. As in many Arab countries, short story authors have started to be seen in Jordan since the 1940’s. Short stories pub-lished in publications such as newspapers and magazines constitute the first cores of the short story in Jordanian literature. It is seen that story authors such as Abd al-Rahman Yagī, Nabil Had-dad, Husnu Fariz, Isa an-Nauri, Mahmud Sayf al-Din al-Iranī, Mahmud Taymūr, Jamal Abu Hamdan, Munis Arrazzaz, Subhi Shahrur, Ghalib Halasa, Fakhri Kivar, Abraham Nasrallah, Maryam Jabir Fa-riha ve Abraham al-Absi have published their stories in various magazines and newspapers.
One of the Jordanian short story outhors is Elias Farkouh. Farkouh, who was born in Amman in 1948 and died on July 15, 2020 in the same place, is a world-renowned writer with his successful short stories. The stories and novels he wrote were deemed worthy of many awards by the leading institutions of the period. Farkouh is one of the most famous writers to express the psychological destruction of the Jewish invasion on the Palestinian people in the axis of social realism. In his works, he presents with a striking depiction of the effect of the Jewish occupation on Arab intel-lectuals who are tired of defeat. Many of the protagonists in the author’s stories are depicted as helpless people who avoid fighting or confronting the reality of society. There are nearly a hun-dred short stories in the story collections in which Farkouh published many of his stories together. One of these stories is ‘Who Ploughs the Sea?’, which ranks first place in the story collection pub-lished under the same name.
In this story of the author tells the extraordinary story of a woman whose psychology deteriorated in the period of chaos, martial law, and Jewish invasion, and committed suicide by jumping into the sea. The names of the heroes in the plot of unknown whereabouts and time are also unknown. The narrative language and style of the story is quite simple. A clear and fluent poetic language is used in the story. The plot is given as complex as the psychological state of the woman who was the protagonist of the event. The author is the narrator in the story. The narrator avoids direct-ness. The story is highly engaging and enthralling to the end. The second protagonist of the story is a male person who is the protagonist, whom the main protagonist woman sees and speaks in a schizophrenic dimension, does not actually exist and is also unnamed. Apart from these two main protagonists, the waiter, the people on the beach are given as vaguely characters. The plot, which seems to have taken place in a house and a cafe by the beach, ends at the bottom of the sea. Con-sidering that the story was written in 1985 and that there were problems in terms of freedoms in Jordan, the prevalence of martial law, the Palestinian resistance and the Jewish invasion, it is pos-sible to say that the incident took place at this time and in this chaotic environment. In the story, storytelling, storytelling techniques such as description, dialogue and monologue have been used appropriately. The psychological problems of the woman in the story, like the helpless heroes in other novels and stories, are thought to be the psychological devastation of the Jewish invasion on the Palestinian people, the psychological negative impact on the Arab intellectual who is tired of being defeated, the psychological problems of those who escape from struggling or facing the re-ality of society. Considering all the situations such as the narrative language, poetic style, success in depictions, and the giving of the plot, it is clearly seen that the story comes from the pen of a master storyteller. This story called ‘Who Ploughs the Sea?’, the storytelling of Jordan and the life, literary personality and works of Elias Farkouh are the subject of this study
The postliberal politics of halal: new directions in the civilizing process?
No full textThis paper examines the emergence of postliberal halal politics in European societies. Building on research undertaken during the EU funded Dialrel project, it examines how the Malaysian state is inserting hegemonic claims into transnational space in order to dominate the international halal market. Moving beyond the idea of horizontally aligned networks of transnational power as the dominant framework for understanding social and economic change, the paper explores the complex interweaving of the large-scale macro processes and everyday micro practices underpinning the rise of Malaysia’s postliberal halal strategy. It is argued that the processes of social and economic differentiation emerging as a result of these processes have the potential to be an important step in the global civilizing process. In conclusion, the paper discusses the implication of these developments for figurational sociology
Platooning merging maneuvers in the presence of parametric uncertainty
Get PDFInternational audienceRecently, adaptive platooning strategies to cope with uncertain vehicle parameters have been proposed. However, in line with most platooning literature, only acyclic graphs have been considered. This work addresses the merging maneuver in the presence uncertain vehicle parameters: during this maneuver, a cyclic communication graph is instantiated, which must be handled in a suitable way. Ideas used to handle this situation and corresponding results are illustrated using a platoon of three vehicles implementing a merging maneuver
Topical application of hemostatic paste
Get PDFAs a measure to control minor surgical bleeding, surgeons usually depend on a number of hemostatic aids. Topical use of bovine thrombin is a widely used procedure to arrest such minor bleeding. A 35 year old male sergeant of Bangladesh Air Force presented with repeated development of hematoma in his left thigh without any history of trauma or previous history of bleeding. Critical analysis of the patients history, routine and sophisticated hematological investigations revealed that the patient developed anti-thrombin antibody following the application of hemostatic paste in the tooth socket five years back during minor dental procedure to stop ignorable bleeding episodes. Therefore, topical use of hemostatic glue/paste or bovine thrombin should be avoided to desist minor bleeding as recombinant human thrombin is now available for topical use
Green Networking in Cellular HetNets: A Unified Radio Resource Management Framework with Base Station ON/OFF Switching
No full textIn this paper, the problem of energy efficiency in cellular heterogeneous networks (HetNets) is investigated using radio resource and power management combined with the base station (BS) ON/OFF switching. The objective is to minimize the total power consumption of the network while satisfying the quality of service (QoS) requirements of each connected user. We consider the case of co-existing macrocell BS, small cell BSs, and private femtocell access points (FAPs). Three different network scenarios are investigated, depending on the status of the FAPs, i.e., HetNets without FAPs, HetNets with closed FAPs, and HetNets with semi-closed FAPs. A unified framework is proposed to simultaneously allocate spectrum resources to users in an energy efficient manner and switch off redundant small cell BSs. The high complexity dual decomposition technique is employed to achieve optimal solutions for the problem. A low complexity iterative algorithm is also proposed and its performances are compared to those of the optimal technique. The particularly interesting case of semi-closed FAPs, in which the FAPs accept to serve external users, achieves the highest energy efficiency due to increased degrees of freedom. In this paper, a cooperation scheme between FAPs and mobile operator is also investigated. The incentives for FAPs, e.g., renewable energy sharing and roaming prices, enabling cooperation are discussed to be considered as a useful guideline for inter-operator agreements.This work was made possible, in part, by NPRP grant # 6-001-2-001 from the Qatar National Research Fund (A member of The Qatar Foundation). The statements made herein are solely the responsibility of the author
Profitability Analysis of Handloom Weaving Units in Tangail District of Bangladesh
No full textHandloom, a traditional cottage industry in Bangladesh, has been contributing significantly to the rural economy of Bangladesh in terms of employment generation and income enhancement. In Bangladesh, handloom weaving activity is considered to be a marginally profitable business compared to other weaving options as well as other occupations. Therefore, the present study emphasizes on analyzing the profitability of handloom weaving units operating in Tangail district, a handloom concentrated region in Bangladesh. To this end, primary data of 53 handloom weaving units have been collected from two Upazilas of this district. From profitability analysis, the study finds that handloom weaving activity in the study area is still profitable albeit marginally. A disaggregated analysis revealed that small scale handloom units earn higher profit per loom compared to single units, medium scale units and large scale units. Contrarily, rate of return earned by large scale units is higher than that by other types of units. It is also found that handloom units, which produce higher value products earn more profit per loom than those producing lower value products. On the contrary, rate of return is lower in case of higher value products than that in case of lower value products. Extent of using family labor and economy of scale effect may have contributed to yield such differences
Robot-assisted radical prostatectomy in the Middle East: A report on the perioperative outcomes from a tertiary care centre in Lebanon
Get PDFObjective: To report on the surgical, oncological and early functional outcomes of robot-assisted radical prostatectomy (RARP) at our tertiary care centre, as there is a scarcity of reports on outcomes of robotic surgery from the Middle East. Patients and methods: We reviewed the electronic health records for patients undergoing RARP between 2013 and 2019 at the American University of Beirut Medical Center. We collected patients’ demographics and preoperative oncological factors including prostate-specific antigen (PSA), clinical oncological stage, and World Health Organization (WHO) grade. PSA persistence, biochemical recurrence (BCR) and positive surgical margin (PSM) were reported. Complications were categorised by Clavien–Dindo grade. Moreover, the postoperative oncological outcomes including the rates of adjuvant and salvage androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) and external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT), chemotherapy, and metastasis were reported. Additionally continence and potency results were retrieved. Results: For the designated period, 250 patients underwent RARP of which 182 (72.8%) underwent lymph node dissection. The median (interquartile range) anaesthesia time was 330 (285–371) min and the estimated blood loss was 200 (200–300) mL. The overall complication rate was 8%, with 2% Clavien–Dindo Grade III–IV complications. The PSM and BCR rates were 21.6% and 6.4%, respectively. Adjuvant ADT and EBRT was administered to 7.2% of the patients. Functional data was available for 112 patients. Continence was 68%, 82% and 97% of the patients at 3, 6 and 12 months, respectively. For 65 patients who had bilateral nerve sparing potency was 37%, 60% and 83% at 3, 6 and 12 months, respectively. Conclusion: This is the largest RARP series from the Middle East. The surgical, oncological and functional outcomes are consistent with those published in the literature. This confirms the safety and efficacy of applying robotic technology in our region during the implementation phase. Abbreviations: ADT: androgen-deprivation therapy; AJCC: American Joint Committee on Cancer; AUBMC: American University of Beirut Medical Center; BCR: biochemical recurrence; CPT: Current Procedural Terminology; EBRT external beam radiation therapy; IQR, interquartile ranges; LOS: length of stay; PLND: pelvic lymph node dissection; PSM: positive surgical margin; (O)(RA)RP, (open) (robot-assisted) radical prostatectomy. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Enslaving Development: An Anthropological Enquiry into the World of NGO
Get PDFThis thesis investigates the conflict of values that occurs in Bangladesh between NGOs and wider society. It examines the dynamics of BRAC, a large NGO, in order to illustrate the dissonance and inconsistencies in development discourse. Tension is evident in development, which is a multi-stranded process, in which each strand may complement or contradict the others. The process may also be understood in terms of the societal change that results from an attempted synthesis of the contradictory, clashing values of Western agency (individualism, equality, market, etc.) and Bangladeshi rural cultural life (community, hierarchy, subsistence, etc.).
Development processes, backed by strong finance, introduce Western ideas and theories to the South. NGOs subscribe to a global policy language in transforming these ideas into locally implementable programmes and projects, ignoring the diverse social, cultural and political settings in which they work. When villagers come into contact with these projects, they are pushed towards a sense of individualism, but instead of developing this individualism, they produce a new form of collectivism. In this hybrid environment, actors engaged in development adhere neither to the old values nor to new ones.
Projects aimed at modernization, itself, have undergone change from a blue-print approach to a process approach. In reality, top-down approaches are renamed but not reformed into bottom-up approaches. NGO projects targeting women, notably through micro-credit programmes, contribute to the rise of women-only organisations as well as matri-focal groups that constitute a challenge to male-dominated village associations. Micro-credit also polarises the traditional notions of money into moral and immoral money to produce new arenas of dispute. Overall, religious groups oppose such NGO interventions.
Conflict occurs within NGOs themselves. This is evident when BRAC, as an organisational entity, seek to accommodate to Western, Bengali and Islamic cultural traits which further generate conflict and are managed by a culture of fear or indulgence. Unless knowledge is shared by both parties there is the strong likelihood of increased conflict to the detriment of both NGOs and the local people
