One of the most hotly debated issues in contemporary Muslim ethics is the status of women in Islamic law. Whereas Muslim conservatives argue that gender-differentiated legal rulings reflect ...complementary gender roles, Muslim feminists argue that Islamic law has subordinated women and is thus in need of reform. The shared assumption on both sides, however, is that gender fundamentally shapes an individual’s legal status. Beyond the Binary explores an expansive cross section of topics in ninth- to twelfth-century Hanafi legal thought, ranging from sexual crimes to consent to marriage, to show that early Muslim jurists imagined a world built not on a binary distinction between male and female but on multiple intersecting hierarchies of gender, age, enslavement, lineage, class, and other social roles. Saadia Yacoob offers a restorative reading of Islamic law, arguing that its intersectional and relational understanding of legal personhood offers a productive space for Muslim feminists to move beyond critique and instead think with and through the Islamic legal tradition.
In farms, Atlantic halibut (
Hippoglossus hippoglossus) exhibit low appetite to formulated feeds, resulting in slow growth rate and feed wastage. Addition of attractants and/or stimulants in feeds ...may motivate them to actively feed in optimum quantities. In this study, olfactory and gustatory (facial) nerve responses to some feed-related chemical compounds were recorded. The olfactory thresholds for 4 tested amino acids were: 10
−
7
M for alanine, 10
−
6
M for arginine and 10
−
4
M for methionine and glutamic acid; at 10
−
3
M, relative response magnitudes (expressed as a percentage of response to 10
−
3
M alanine) of 20 amino acids varied from 144% for methionine to 19% for aspartic acid. Gustatory nerve responses to 22 compounds including amino acids, bile acids, organic acids, and nucleotides were recorded. Only proline, adenosine monophosphate and inosine monophosphate elicited responses at 10
−
3
M; at 10
−
2
M, betaine and guanidine monophosphate also elicited large responses. The gustatory threshold for proline response was at 10
−
5
M. The results indicate that halibut possesses a generalized olfactory response pattern to amino acids that is comparable with other species and a very specific and narrow taste spectrum.
This study tested the efficacy of prey extracts to induce food search behavior in juvenile (15–25 cm total length, 0 year group) Atlantic halibut (
Hippoglossus hippoglossus). In square culture ...tanks, halibut responded to shrimp and squid extract by tightly turning towards the source of the stimulus and by swimming in circles for 2–5 min following stimulus delivery. Cod extract, or a synthetic mixture consisting of glycine, proline, betaine, arginine, and alanine, failed to evoke this behavior.
Olfactory sensitivity of juvenile (0 year) Atlantic cod Gadus morhua to 20 L‐amino acids was studied by recording electroencephalograms (EEG) from the olfactory bulb. Leucine, methionine, asparagine, ...glutamine, alanine and threonine were highly stimulatory; proline, phenylalanine, aspartic acid and tryptophan were the least stimulatory. Threshold concentrations determined for four amino acids were 10−8 M for alanine, 10−7 M for arginine and leucine and 10−6 M for glutamic acid.
The gustatory sensitivity of the Nile tilapia, Oreochromis niloticus L., to different amino acids was studied using an electrophysiological approach. The electrical responses were recorded from a ...branch of the facial nerve innervating the external taste buds of the upper lip. The relative stimulatory effectiveness (RSE) of nine amino acids and betaine were determined at a concentration of 1 mm and all of them elicited neural responses. This species responded well to the neutral, basic and acidic amino acids. The most stimulatory amino acids were L‐histidine, L‐arginine, L‐serine, L‐methionine and L‐glutamine; L‐proline and betaine were the least stimulatory. The results of this study suggest that the Nile tilapia has high external gustatory sensitivity to some amino acids as a physiological adaptation to search effectively for their sources. The effect of the pH, ranging from 4.0 to 9.0, on the RSE of three neutral amino acids and artificial pond water (APW) was also studied. The RSE increased below pH 6.0 and was relatively unaffected from 7.0 to 9.0, indicating that acidified stimulants are highly stimulatory in this species. Nile tilapia did not discriminate the pH of APW as effectively as some of the species studied earlier.
We report the result of evaluating radiation damage to Bicron BC408 plastic scintillator used in the DOslash Luminosity Monitor during Run IIa. The Luminosity Monitor provides pseudo-rapidity ...coverage over the range 2.7 < |eta| < 4.4, with the radiation dose in Run IIa estimated to be 0.5 MRad for the region closest to the beams. We find the light yield is degraded by 10-15 % due to radiation damage by comparing new and old scintillator in four observables: (i) visual inspection, (ii) optical transmittance, (iii) response to the radioactive source of 90 Sr and (iv) light yield for cosmic rays.
The main goal of this research is to successfully fabricate particulate systems for sustained delivery of bumped kinase inhibitors (BKIs) for malaria transmission blocking. The report focuses on ...optimization of a nanoparticle-based BKI-delivery system and the effects between different fabrication methods and drug hydrophobicity. The first chapters consist of an overview of material/method choices and reviews on both sustained drug delivery systems and nanoparticle fabrication techniques. The middle chapters discuss fabrication and characterization of BKI-loaded particles via emulsification and fluidic nanoprecipitation (fNP). The last chapters compare these two fabrication methods and two BKI molecules for effects on particle characteristics, incorporation, and release. Using the emulsification and fNP fabrication methods we produced BKI-loaded poly (DL-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) particles. BKIs used included RM-1-132 and 1294 (provided by the Van Voorhis and Maly groups, University of Washington). These BKIs are generally amphiphilic, with 1294 displaying a slightly more hydrophobic tendency. The amphiphilic nature of the drug molecule creates a challenge for incorporation into delivery systems, which work optimally with strongly hydrophilic or hydrophobic molecules. Increasing the fabrication pH to a basic pH beyond the molecule's pKa neutralized the molecule and enhanced the incorporation into the PLGA particles. Additional optimization was performed to further increase incorporation. Particles were characterized for size, surface charge, and evaluated for total BKI content and release. Our best systems had ∼100% incorporation, and >100ng/hr release (per 25mg particles) up to 4 days (∼50ng/hr per 25mg particles up to 4 weeks). Comparisons were made between particle size, fabrication methods and drug hydrophobicity to elucidate fundamentals of amphiphilic drug incorporation. The fNP-fabricated particles displayed >60% incorporation efficiency regardless of drug hydrophobicity, but also displayed higher polydispersity when initial loading or drug hydrophobicity increased. The emulsion system displayed a maximum loading for BKI-loaded particles, which shifted higher as drug hydrophobicity increased. Particle size remained mostly monodisperse except at the highest initial loading. We also examined parallel models to understand the differences between the two fabrication methods and drug molecules, as well as to predict in vivo behavior. Overall, we have successful fabricated a BKI-loaded particulate delivery system which can extend the release on BKIs to help improve malaria transmission blocking and reduce the need for multiple drug administrations. Future directions include increasing and extending the release, testing activity of the released BKI in vivo, and optimizing storage conditions for particles.
The effects of exposing the taste receptors to two common aquaculture therapeutants, potassium permanganate (KMnO4) and formalin, on the gustatory responses in the Nile tilapia Oreochromis niloticus ...(Linnaeus) were studied using an electrophysiological approach. Electrical responses to the stimuli before and after perfusing the receptors with the toxicants were compared. Responses to 1.0 mM l‐methionine (l‐met) were significantly reduced when the receptors were perfused with 2.0 mg L−1 KMnO4 or 200.0 mg L−1 formalin. KMnO4 suppressed the responses to 56%, whereas formalin reduced them to 83%. Both toxicants reduced the responses to l‐arginine to a similar extent to that of l‐met, indicating that the action of the toxicants is not specific for the receptor sites for amino acids. On the other hand, the toxicants suppressed the responses to quinine significantly more than those to amino acids, which indicates that the transduction pathways for bitter substances are much more sensitive. The suppressions were reversible, suggesting that these toxicants do not cause any permanent damage to the physiological features of the taste receptors, but only interfere with their normal functioning. The possible mechanisms of suppression and their consequences on the feeding process are discussed.
An improved object identification for NAVI Nagarajan, R.; Sainarayanan, G.; Yacoob, S. ...
2004 IEEE Region 10 Conference TENCON 2004,
2004, Letnik:
A
Conference Proceeding
Navigation assistance for visually impaired (NAVI) is a vision substitute system designed to assist blind people for autonomous navigation. NAVI working concept is based on 'image to sound' ...conversion whereby input image captured from the video sensor is processed and transformed into stereo sound pattern. The sound is conveyed to blind's auditory system via stereo headphones. Processing in NAVI can be divided into two sub modules, which are the vision module and sonification module. In the vision module, image processing is employed to identify objects from the image. This paper presents an improved object identification methodology for NAVI. Objects are identified by its closed boundary. Properties of each object are evaluated using AI technique as to assign vision preference, so that blind user can determine the location as well as other properties of that object. Experimentation and results are presented to evaluate the proposed methodology for blind navigation purposes.
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