631 research outputs found
Levantine attitudes towards the Franks during the early Crusades (490/1096 - 564/1169)
No full textThe period of the Crusades was one of the most important periods in the
history of both Western Europe and the Middle East, for it was during this period
that the peoples of Western Europe made their first major incursion on eastern soil.
The result of this was that an unprecedented amount of contact was established
between East and West, forcing each side to become more closely acquainted with
the culture of the other. As far as this cultural exchange is concerned, one of the
most significant parts of the crusading period was that encompassing the first two
crusades and their aftermath (490/1096-564/1169), as it was during this period that
crusaders and easterners first clashed with each other, and were forced to learn
much about each other. This sudden clash and forced acquaintance resulted in the
development of certain attitudes on each side towards the other. This thesis concerns
itself with the development of the attitudes of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish
communities towards the Franks (western crusaders) in the major theatre of conflict
of the area, the Levant.
In the thesis as many texts as possible from the literature of the period are
examined, in order to extract information from them concerning the developments
in Levantine knowledge of and attitudes towards the Franks. The texts examined
include both contemporary and later historical, geographical and judicial texts from
the area, and also local works of literature. In addition to the Muslim, Christian and
Jewish texts, and for the sake of comparison and completeness, brief consideration
is also given to a number of works of Byzantine and Frankish writers. Naturally, use
is also made of secondary works by modern scholars. In this way this thesis provides
a detailed examination of cross-cultural inter-faith relations during this formative
period
OffSig-sinGAN: A deep learning-based image augmentation model for offline signature verification / Muhammad Muzaffar Hameed
No full textOffline signature verification (OfSV) is essential in preventing the falsification of documents. In a real-world scenario, forensic handwriting experts verify offline signatures by visually comparing the suspected with the reference. However, the authenticity of the questioned signature is estimated by evaluating the characteristic features of signatures, their similarities and differences within the suspected and reference samples. Forensic handwriting experts can assess the probability that the evidence under investigation indicates that the questioned signature is an authentic signature used by the reference signer, or the questioned signature is the product of a forgery process with the utilisation of computational methods, such as OfSV systems. Deep learning (DL)-based OfSV systems have recently attained state-of-the-art results in offline signature verification. However, these systems require a large number of signature images to achieve acceptable performance. Nonetheless, only a limited number of signature samples are readily available to train these models in real-world scenarios. Several researchers have proposed models to augment new signature images by applying various transformations. Some have used human neuromotor and cognitive-inspired augmentation models to address the demand for more signature samples. However, such approaches fail to create a considerable number of signatures and to bring any new visual features to improve the network learning ability. Augmenting a sufficient number of signatures with variations is still challenging. Therefore, this study proposed OffSig-SinGAN, which is a deep learning-based image augmentation model to address the limited number of signature problems on offline signature verification. The proposed model can augment several high-quality signature images with diversity from a single signature image only. The quality of augmented signature images is assessed using four metrics which are pixel-by-pixel difference, peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), structural similarity index measure (SSIM), and frechet inception distance (FID). Various experiments were conducted to evaluate the proposed image augmentation model's performance on selected DL-based OfSV systems and to prove whether it helped to improve the verification accuracy rate. Experiment results showed that the proposed image augmentation model (OffSig-SinGAN) performed 2.93% better on the GPDSsyntheticSignature dataset than other augmentation methods. The improved verification accuracy rate of the selected DL-based OfSV system proved the effectiveness of the proposed augmentation model
Controlled cationic curing of epoxy composites with photochemically modified silanol encapsulated carbon black
Full text linkEpoxy resins have been an inspiration in adhesives and coatings, however, uneven photopolymerization kinetics result in wrinkled surface and filler segregation, causing aesthetic and mechanical damage. Hence a control over curing kinetics is required not only to dodge filler segregation but also to control composite surface smoothness. In this study, photochemical modification of carbon black with mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane, has resulted in unique silanol dendrites exterior on carbon black. Kinetic investigation confirmed that E-a for cationic polymerization of modified CB composite is three folds less in comparison to neat matrix, and two folds less in comparison to unmodified CB composite. Silanol dendrites have contributed on epoxy curing kinetics, through activated monomer mechanism. Samples have been characterized through XPS, FTIR, SEM, TGA, DSC, Raman, and EDX
Southeast Asia as Seen from Mughal India : Tahir Muhammad's 'Immaculate Garden' (ca. 1600)
No full textMuzaffar Alam, University of Chicago & Sanjay Subrahmanyam, University of California
at Los Angeles
Southeast Asia as Seen from Mughal India : Tahir Muhammad's "Immaculate Garden " (ca.
1600)
On a souvent cru que la xénologie n'existait pas en Inde moghole en tant que champ intellectuel, et que les Moghols ne montraient pas la moindre curiosité envers les autres pays de l'océan Indien. On a aussi voulu parfois contraster cette attitude des Moghols avec le cas ottoman, car, au XVIe siècle, les Ottomans ont manifestement essayé de développer un réseau maritime et politique qui allait jusqu'en Asie du Sud-Est. Cet essai est divisé en trois parties. Dans un premier temps, les auteurs revisitent les lieux communs sur les rapports entre les Ottomans et les pays de l'Asie du Sud-Est, notamment Aceh. La deuxième partie, le véritable cœur de l'essai, est construite autour d'un texte écrit vers 1600 par un intellectuel moghol, le Rauzat ut-Tâhirîn de Tahir Muhammad Sabzwari, œuvre encyclopédique mais contenant aussi une section fort intéressante consacrée aux pays voisins de l'Inde. On trouve dans ce texte des développements sur la situation politique et culturelle en Birmanie à la fin du XVIe siècle, ainsi qu'une vision assez originale du Sultanat d'Aceh juste avant l'époque d'Iskandar Muda (1607-1636). Enfin, les auteurs entreprennent la comparaison de la vision de Tahir Muhammad avec celle d'un texte plus célèbre, le Safîna-i Sulaimânî écrit par un certain Muhammad Rabi', qui faisait partie d'une ambassade saf avide envoyée à la cour du roi siamois Phra Narai, dans les années 1680.Alam Muzaffar, Subrahmanyam Sanjay. Southeast Asia as Seen from Mughal India : Tahir Muhammad's 'Immaculate Garden' (ca. 1600). In: Archipel, volume 70, 2005. pp. 209-237
In pursuit of 1 Sri Lanka: Lessons from a Malaysian counterpart
No full textThe quest for national unity has become a leadership challenge for successive leaders of both Malaysia and Sri Lanka. While the two countries record significant differences in contexts and background, the similarities are equally striking. The following is an article that is based on a two-country study undertaken by the author to unpackage and explore the "1Malaysia" Programme that was launched in 2009 following the election of Malaysian Prime Minister's, Tun Najib Razak into his first term in office. The author spent a two week resident attachment at the 1Malayisa Foundation in Malaysia in the summer of 2012 to study further the facets of the governance programme that had been formulated with the intention of resolving the ethnic tensions that have plagued Malaysia since it gained independence, or Merdeka. The purpose of the endeavour was three-fold: First, to identify and extract aspects of the 1Malaysia Programme as relevant to the Sri Lankan context so as to formulate a potential 1Sri Lanka programme that is cognizant of the variables at stake. Secondly, the article seeks to critique the already existent framework of the 1Malaysia Programme by providing recommendations for improvement where necessary. Third, to begin dialogue and deliberations on the rich learning and exchange that can be cultivated between the two countries by providing a framework for bilateral cooperation between the Governments of Malaysia and Sri Lanka
Economic power dispatch of power system with pollution control using matlab optimization toolbox / Wan Muhammad Muzaffar Wan Azmi
No full textThis study presents a study solving the economic power dispatch problem of power system using MATLAB Optimization Toolbox. The objective is to minimize the total fuel cost of generation and enviromental pollution control levels cause by fossil based thermal generating units and also maintain an acceptable system performance in terms of limits on generator real power outputs and system losses
Economic power dispatch of power system with pollution control using MATLAB optimization toolbox / Wan Muhammad Muzaffar Wan Azmi
Full text linkThis study presents a study on solving the economic power dispatch problem of power system using MATLAB Optimization Toolbox. The objective is to minimize the total fuel cost of generation and environmental pollution control levels caused by fossil based thermal generating units and also maintain an acceptable system performance in terms of limits on generator real power outputs and system losses. The proposed approach has been evaluated on the test system contain of six generating units. The result obtained show that the purposed method can be used to solve economic power dispatch
Poverty, Feudalism, and Land Reform—The Continued Relevance of Iqbal
Full text linkAfter half a century of development experience, one-third of the population of Pakistan today is condemned to struggle below the poverty line, howsoever defined. In absolute terms, this size of the population of the poor is larger than the total population of [West] Pakistan at the time of independence in 1947. The incidence of rural poverty is greater than in urban areas. Iqbal died nine years before the state of Pakistan was established in 1947 and 2 years before the adoption of the Lahore Resolution in 1940. Territorially, the present-day Pakistan is closer to Iqbal’s idea of the Muslim State presented in his famous presidential address at the annual session of the Muslim League held at Allahabad in 1930: “I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sindh and Balochistan amalgamated into a single State” [Brelvi (1977), p. 63]. The same, however, would be hard to say in regard to his vision of economy and society. Poverty as a problem, feudalism as the cause and land reform as a solution formed the most important part of this vision. Why did the Muslims of India require a state of their own? Iqbal elaborated this point later in a letter written to the Quaid-i-Azam in May 1937. He wrote: “The problem of bread is becoming more and more acute. The Muslim has begun to feel that he has been going down and down during the last 200 years. Ordinarily he believes that his poverty is due to Hindu money-lending or capitalism. The perception that it is equally due to foreign rule has not yet fully come to him. But it is bound to come. The atheistic socialism of Jawaharlal is not likely to receive much response from the Muslims. The question therefore is: how is it possible to solve the problem of Muslim poverty? And the whole future of the League depends on the League’s activity to solve this question. If the League can give no such promises I am sure that Muslim masses will remain indifferent to it as before. Happily there is a solution in the enforcement of the Law of Islam and its further development in the light of modern ideas.
Psychotherapy for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
No full textGiven the growing evidence base of psychotherapies for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, it is timely to explore their relevance to global mental health. In this chapter, we review the evidence base for psychotherapies used in high-income countries and discuss whether and how these can be extrapolated to low- and middle-income countries (LMIC). We believe that cost-effective strategies developed in LMIC may provide a platform that is relevant to the global adoption and scale-up of these conditions. The chapter will also explore the barriers to and challenges of using these approaches in LMIC and explore some of the approaches already being used with success to overcome these challenges and barriers.</p
Library management system using RFID technology / Muhammad Khairani Abdul Rahman, Siti Nor Aisah Muhammad and Siti Nur Muslihah Muzaffar
Full text linkRadio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a new generation of Auto Identification and Data collection technology which helps to automate business processes and allows identification of large number of tagged objects like books using radio waves, RFID based library management system would allow fast transaction flow for the library and will prove immediate and long term benefits to library traceability and security. This project is developed to replace the conventional library management system that designed and extremely difficult to handle for bigger library. This system is provided an efficient for leading books using combination of RFID sensor ARDUINO. ARDUINO is used as a main microcontroller for to operate this whole management system. RFID will manage and control all the information of the library and the problems will be solved
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