- Santa Barbara, United States
Zain Ali
University of California, Santa Barbara, Physics, Department Member
Safe Interval Path Planning (SIPP) is a powerful algorithm for solving a single-agent pathfinding problem where the agent is confined to a graph and certain vertices/edges of this graph are blocked at certain time intervals due to dynamic... more
Safe Interval Path Planning (SIPP) is a powerful algorithm for solving a single-agent pathfinding problem where the agent is confined to a graph and certain vertices/edges of this graph are blocked at certain time intervals due to dynamic obstacles that populate the environment. The original SIPP algorithm relies on the assumption that the agent is able to stop instantaneously. However, this assumption often does not hold in practice, e.g. a mobile robot moving at a cruising speed cannot stop immediately but rather requires gradual deceleration to a full stop that takes time. In other words, the robot is subject to kinodynamic constraints. Unfortunately, as we show in this work, in such a case, the original SIPP is incomplete. To this end, we introduce a novel variant of SIPP that is provably complete and optimal for planning with acceleration/deceleration. In the experimental evaluation, we show that the key property of the original SIPP still holds for the modified version: it per...
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Umoji is a realistic facial expression digital im-age/icon that can be used to express real facial expressions in order to increase interaction with one another in an entertaining way. This paper introduces the reader with the importance... more
Umoji is a realistic facial expression digital im-age/icon that can be used to express real facial expressions in order to increase interaction with one another in an entertaining way. This paper introduces the reader with the importance of text messaging using emojis and its popularity. Emoticon and emoji's are smiley's used to express basic human expressions. Second, we discuss to use real life emoticons in text messaging applications and to further secure users password using an Umoji as an authentication system. This paper discusses and illustrate the statistical results gathered from survey in SZABIST Hyderabad campus about what they think about using Umojis while texting and its future prospects in securing users password.
The rapidly prevailing Internet of Things (IoT) devices in numerous sectors, may jeopardize a vast amount of confidential data, raising threats to network security. Thereby, it is crucial to verify the data source and device identity to... more
The rapidly prevailing Internet of Things (IoT) devices in numerous sectors, may jeopardize a vast amount of confidential data, raising threats to network security. Thereby, it is crucial to verify the data source and device identity to ensure network security. Thus, the identification of IoT devices is a substantial step in securing the underlying network system. The models which are proposed in previous studies are trained and tested on the same dataset, which leads to overfitting. In this work, we propose a generic machine learning approach for IoT device identification and test the trained models on four publically available datasets. To better identify IoT devices in the network through machine learning models, we first extracted 85 features from packet capture (.pcap) files using NFStream. We then selected 20 features using the information gain method and trained six machine learning models in our experiments on two publicly available datasets, i.e., UNSW IoT Traces, and Your Things dataset, for binary classification. In the training phase, we obtained the highest 99% accuracy for IoT device identification using Random Forest and Naïve Bayes classifiers over UNSW and Your Things dataset respectively. Further, we evaluated these models on two other publicly available datasets. Overall, the Naïve Bayes classifier outperformed all other classifiers for detecting both IoT and non-IoT traffic, with 92% average accuracy.
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Smart grid (SG) has been recognized as a promising solution to manage and distribute electricity in the next generation power systems. The large number of devices in power systems make the wired communication a non feasible solution, thus... more
Smart grid (SG) has been recognized as a promising solution to manage and distribute electricity in the next generation power systems. The large number of devices in power systems make the wired communication a non feasible solution, thus wireless transmission becomes necessary. However this demands a huge portion of radio spectrum. In this work, we aim to provide the secure and reliable SG communication through an efficient spectrum sharing mechanism. Specifically, we consider an underlay transmission and seek to minimize the interference under complete spectrum reuse while guaranteeing the required secrecy rate as well as end to end delay. A mathematical optimization problem is formulated and convex optimization techniques are exploited to find the near optimal solution. Further a suboptimal solution is also proposed to reduce the computational complexity. Simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.
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Research Interests: Information Systems, Genetics, Genomics, Biology, Medicine, and 4 moreGenome, Monophyly, Phylogenetic Tree, and Synteny
Research Interests: Medicine, Diarrhea, Constipation, Weight Loss, Nausea, and 3 moreAbdominal Pain, Vomiting, and Abdomen
Research Interests: Philosophy and Islam
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THE LANGUAGE LIBRARY Series editor: David Crystal The Language Library was created in 1952 by Eric Partridge, the great etymo-logist and lexicographer, who from 1966 to 1976 was assisted by his co-editor Simeon Potter. Together they... more
THE LANGUAGE LIBRARY Series editor: David Crystal The Language Library was created in 1952 by Eric Partridge, the great etymo-logist and lexicographer, who from 1966 to 1976 was assisted by his co-editor Simeon Potter. Together they commissioned volumes on the ...
Research Interests: Phonetics and Linguistics
... Darnell Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario Anna Morpurgo Davies Somerville College, Oxford William Grabe Department of ... Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai... more
... Darnell Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario Anna Morpurgo Davies Somerville College, Oxford William Grabe Department of ... Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa˜o Paulo Shanghai Taipei ...
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We have engaged with James’s account of faiths in three distinct ways. First, I articulated James’s argument which suggests that a person can, under certain conditions, be entitled to believe beyond the evidence. Second, we engaged with... more
We have engaged with James’s account of faiths in three distinct ways. First, I articulated James’s argument which suggests that a person can, under certain conditions, be entitled to believe beyond the evidence. Second, we engaged with Cliffordian evidentialism, which maintains that it is always wrong to believe anything based upon insufficient evidence. This absolutist form of evidentialism was found to be weak. There were three considerations in support of this conclusion: (a) it begs the question against the example of the mountaineer and courtship which suggest the justifiability of venturing beyond the evidence; (b) the case of the mountaineer suggests that in some cases, Cliffordian evidentialism and the Jamesian account are on a par with respect to grasping truth and avoiding error, i.e., in the case of the mountaineer, when a choice is made, be it in accordance with Clifford’s maxim, or with the Jamesian account, the mountaineer cannot avoid the risk of error; and (c) it does not seem possible to justify Clifford’s maxim on the basis of evidence without begging the question. Third, we considered and responded to three distinct challenges which questioned the applicability of James’s account to the case of religious belief. In response to these challenges, I argued that: (a) acceptance of the ambiguity thesis is consistent with an attitude of non-dogmatic commitment and does not require tentative commitment; (b) it is also possible to accept ambiguity yet continue to view faith commitment as being momentous and important; and (c) ambiguity, uncertainty and the risk of error do not undermine the right to exercise trust; instead, we need a form of trust which is reflective in nature.
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The objective of this research paper is to develop such a system which can transmit the pressure of the tire on a module, which can not only display the air pressure of the tire but also maintain the pressure of tire by operating an air... more
The objective of this research paper is to develop such a system which can transmit the pressure of the tire on a module, which can not only display the air pressure of the tire but also maintain the pressure of tire by operating an air filling machine. Key elements of this research are pressure sensor, microcontroller, RF transceiver, solenoid valve
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... RELC Journal DOI: 10.1177/003368828601700208 1986; 17; 105 RELC Journal Jack Richards, John Platt, Heidi Weber, Peter Inman and Peter Inman Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics ... Jack Richards, John Platt and Heidi Weber.... more
... RELC Journal DOI: 10.1177/003368828601700208 1986; 17; 105 RELC Journal Jack Richards, John Platt, Heidi Weber, Peter Inman and Peter Inman Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics ... Jack Richards, John Platt and Heidi Weber. Longman (1985). ...
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In this research, problems are discussed dynamically distributed systems that relate to the sharing of data and communication from one system to another over the network. A distributed system communicates with its related systems by... more
In this research, problems are discussed dynamically distributed systems that relate to the sharing of data and communication from one system to another over the network. A distributed system communicates with its related systems by sending and receiving messages over the internet and in this way, it fulfills its work. When we discuss dynamic distributed systems, it means that it includes many different changeable types of networks, different operating systems like android, mac, windows, different software processors portability, breaking down of WAN, and inter-process communication errors. Another problem that accrues in distributed systems is latency. So, it is very difficult to develop software for these types of environments. Proposed work is related to make message communication in distributed systems easy, reliable, and efficient. For the sharing of data, coherence is responsible. Every problem can be solved but that proper appropriate methods and algorithms are required. We c...
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In this work, we consider a joint power allocation and bit loading problem in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based cognitive radio (CR) network. The objective is to maximize the end-to-end rate in a relay aided dual... more
In this work, we consider a joint power allocation and bit loading problem in an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based cognitive radio (CR) network. The objective is to maximize the end-to-end rate in a relay aided dual hop transmission subject to individual power constraints at each transmission node. More specifically, an underlay CR transmission is considered, where the secondary nodes transmit simultaneously with the primary nodes subject to an interference protection criteria. An efficient algorithm is proposed which maximizes the overall throughput while meeting all the constraints. Simulations results are presented to validate the performance of our proposed scheme.
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Team effectiveness models in the literature are primarily concentrated on traditional teams, with few involving the multiteam system (MTS) level of analysis in the model. Teams achieve their goals by managing both teamwork (e.g.,... more
Team effectiveness models in the literature are primarily concentrated on traditional teams, with few involving the multiteam system (MTS) level of analysis in the model. Teams achieve their goals by managing both teamwork (e.g., interpersonal, effective, motivational, cognitive) and taskwork (e.g., strategy, goal setting, project management) activities. When MTSs are involved, multiple teams manage their own teamwork and taskwork activities, while leadership must be in place to coordinate these activities within and between teams in order to achieve the organization's goal (the MTS's goal). This research study conducted a systematic review of current team effectiveness frameworks and models. A narrative-based method for theorizing was utilized to develop a new MTS team effectiveness framework. This research contributes to the MTS literature by providing a new formula for team effectiveness at both the team level (team effectiveness formula) and the MTS level (MTS team effec...
A channel amplitude quantization method that can effectively quantize the channel response using just one single threshold value is proposed in order to extract a random manipulating sequence with good secrecy properties. Specifically, a... more
A channel amplitude quantization method that can effectively quantize the channel response using just one single threshold value is proposed in order to extract a random manipulating sequence with good secrecy properties. Specifically, a Time Division Duplex (TDD) wireless system is considered over independent identical distributed (i.i.d.) Rayleigh fast fading channel, where potential passive eavesdroppers (Eves) can only estimate their own channel and have no knowledge about CSI between legitimate communication parties. The transmitter (Alice) is only aware of the CSI of the legitimate user (Bob). Particularly, the proposed security technique takes the bits of the transmitted data packets and manipulate them with a logical vector that characterizes the channel randomness based on the estimated CSI gain. The process of manipulation is implemented on a bit level basis using an XOR operation exactly before modulation process. The same XOR operation is implemented after demodulation process on the detected bits to extract the concealed bits. The obtained simulation results show that the employment of such mechanism can ensure data confidentiality. Furthermore, the simulation results are extended to include the effect of the selected quantization threshold on the BER performance of Eve as well as the amount of information leakage to its side. It is shown that security gap region between Bob and Eve is made very large over all expected Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) values despite the small degradation in the bit error rate (BER) performance of Bob because of the expected channel estimation errors due to noise.
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Context: Maintaining precise ranges of urine pH and specific gravity (SG) is essential to avoid toxicity in patients receiving high-dose methotrexate (HDMTX) for acute lymphoblastic processes and osteosarcoma. Three urinalysis methods are... more
Context: Maintaining precise ranges of urine pH and specific gravity (SG) is essential to avoid toxicity in patients receiving high-dose methotrexate (HDMTX) for acute lymphoblastic processes and osteosarcoma. Three urinalysis methods are used: manually read dipsticks (DpH/DSG), automated dipsticks (ApH/ASG), and urinalysis machines (UpH/USG). Objective: To compare the reliability of manual and automated dipsticks to urinalysis machines, as urinalysis machines are currently the most reliable and accurate method based on literature review. Design: Retrospective chart review comparing pH and SG measurements of patients who received HDMTX from January 2017 to June 2020. Setting: Southwest Cancer Center at University Medical Center (UMC) in Lubbock, TX (county hospital). Patients or Other Participants: Patients receiving HDMTX (≥ 500 mg/m2) who were tested by ≥ 2 methods during a 4-hour period. Seventeen patients (59% female, average age 9.2 years) met inclusion criteria, but only 11 (81% female, average age 9.7 years) had sufficient data for analysis. Interventions: The study did not involve therapeutic, clinical, or diagnostic interventions. Main Outcomes Measures: Primary outcome measures are pH and specific gravity as measured by manual dipstick, automated dipstick, and urinalysis machine. Outcomes parameters were analyzed by Pearson product-moment correlation and paired sample t-test. Results: Each pair of methods correlated for pH readings, but only ApH and UpH showed a significant, strong positive correlation (r = 0.65, p = 0.003). DSG and ASG had a strong positive correlation (r = 0.833, p = 0.167), while ASG and USG had a moderate negative correlation (r = -0.454, p = 0.067), but neither of these were significant. Paired sample t-test revealed ASG was higher than USG (α=0.011, p≤ 0.05). No other mean differences were significant. Conclusions: Manual and automated dipsticks are as reliable as urinalysis machines for testing pH, but automated dipsticks yield a higher SG, while ApH and UpH are highly correlated. However, our findings may not be clinically significant due to small sample size and missing data from chart review. Further study using a larger sample and prospective approach could help assess cost-effective alternatives to standard urinalysis.
Research Interests: Medicine and Urinalysis
Abstract To support the massive connectivity in Internet of Things (IoT), several promising techniques like cognitive radio (CR) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) enables the user to share spectrum resources. This work aims to... more
Abstract To support the massive connectivity in Internet of Things (IoT), several promising techniques like cognitive radio (CR) and non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) enables the user to share spectrum resources. This work aims to achieve fairness among secondary users (SUs) in IoT cooperative NOMA-based CR transmission. We design a power allocation algorithm, an independent battery constraint at each node is considered, and power gap among transmissions of two NOMA users is applied for successive interference cancellation. The simulation results show that the proposed framework provides excellent performance and for sufficient available transmission power perfect fairness is achieved.
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In this study, we first quantify the secrecy performance achieved by employing precoded orthogonal space time block coding (POSTBC) in order to use it as a benchmark for comparison purposes with a new proposed security scheme. In POSTBC,... more
In this study, we first quantify the secrecy performance achieved by employing precoded orthogonal space time block coding (POSTBC) in order to use it as a benchmark for comparison purposes with a new proposed security scheme. In POSTBC, space time codewords are precoded before being transmitted with an optimum pre-coding matrix based on the main channel of the legitimate parties. The obtained results demonstrate a considerable secrecy gap region in the resulting bit error rate (BER) performance due to using POSTBC. Afterwards, a new method called pre-equlicodization (precoding along with semi pre-equalization) is proposed to further enhance the secrecy performance. In pre-equlicodization scheme, the transmitted symbols are precoded by a new modified matrix called pre-equalicodizing matrix. This matrix is built by manipulating each row element in the optimal selected precoding matrix by the corresponding amplitude square inverse of the estimated channel gain over each data stream. T...
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BACKGROUND Syncope is a symptom complex comprising of a brief loss of consciousness leading to a transient decrease in cerebral blood flow that resolves completely. 2D-transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is a useful tool to detect... more
BACKGROUND Syncope is a symptom complex comprising of a brief loss of consciousness leading to a transient decrease in cerebral blood flow that resolves completely. 2D-transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is a useful tool to detect underlying structural heart disease, which can lead to syncope, e.g., aortic stenosis, atrial masses. This study aimed to find the subgroups of patients with syncope who would benefit the most from a TEE. METHODS We did a retrospective chart review of all patients aged 18 years or older, admitted to our hospital with a primary diagnosis of syncope between January 2015 and January 2017 to determine the frequency and findings of echo in all these patients. The baseline characteristics, demographics were taken into account for the inclusion of these patients into the study. RESULTS A total of 369 patients were initially studied, but only 139 patients were included in the final analysis based on inclusion criteria. Among the high-risk patients (i.e., abnormal...
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An increasing amount of data and information coming from social networks that can be used to generate a variety of data patterns for different types of investigation such as human social behavior, system security, criminology etc. A... more
An increasing amount of data and information coming from social networks that can be used to generate a variety of data patterns for different types of investigation such as human social behavior, system security, criminology etc. A framework is developed to predict major types of social media crimes (Cyber stalking, Cyber bullying, Cyber Hacking, Cyber Harassment, and Cyber Scam) using the data obtained from social media website. The proposed framework is consist of three modules; data (tweet) pre-processing, classifying model builder and prediction. To build the prediction model Multinomial Naïve Bayes (MNB), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used that classify given data into different classes of crime. Further N-Gram language model is used with these machine learning algorithms to identify the best value of n and measure the accuracy of the system at different levels such as Unigram, Bigram, Trigram, and 4-gram. Results shows that all three algorithm attain the precision, Recall and F-measure above than 0.9 however Support vector machine performed slightly better. The proposed system produced better accuracy result as compared to existing network-based feature selection approach.
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HIV infects the CD4 cells which marks the suppression of our immune system. DNA from serum of healthy, treated and untreated HIV infected individuals was extracted. The DNA was subjected to 16S metagenomic sequencing and analyzed using... more
HIV infects the CD4 cells which marks the suppression of our immune system. DNA from serum of healthy, treated and untreated HIV infected individuals was extracted. The DNA was subjected to 16S metagenomic sequencing and analyzed using QIIME2 pipeline. 16S sequencing analysis showed serum microbiome was dominated by Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidota and Actinobacteria. Treated HIV infection showed highest abundance of Firmicutes (66.40%) significantly higher than untreated HIV infection (35.88%) and control (41.89%). Bacilli was most abundant class in treated (63.59%) and second most abundant in untreated (34.53%) while control group showed highest abundance of class Gamma-proteobacteria (45.86%). Untreated HIV infection group showed Enterococcus (10.72%) and Streptococcus (6.599) as the most abundant species. Untreated HIV infection showed significantly higher (p = 0.0039) species richness than treated and control groups. An altered serum microbiome of treated HIV infection and higher microbial abundance in serum of untreated HIV infection was observed.
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The future generation of wireless communication networks demands for high spectral efficiency to accommodate a large number of devices over the limited available frequency spectrum. Device to device (D2D) systems exploit channel reuse to... more
The future generation of wireless communication networks demands for high spectral efficiency to accommodate a large number of devices over the limited available frequency spectrum. Device to device (D2D) systems exploit channel reuse to offer high spectral efficiency and reduce the burden on the communication infrastructure by facilitating communication between devices without involving the base station. We can further enhance the efficiency of D2D systems by employing non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) for the transmission of the signals. In NOMA the signals of multiple users are transmitted on the same channel, simultaneously. Deployment of relays can assist the users that do not have a reliable link of communication. A combination of these advanced technologies may offer very high spectral efficiency and a robust communication system. This article aims to design efficient resource allocation techniques for the future communication systems. We consider sum rate maximization problem subject to limited power budget at different transmitting nodes and necessary transmit power gap among users for successful NOMA implementation. Under decode and forward relaying protocol, the problem turns out to be a unique joint uplink-downlink NOMA optimization. We then propose a deep neural networks (DNN) framework to acquire a joint power loading solution at source and relaying nodes. To obtain reliable data for DNN training and testing, we also derive an optimal solution of the problem through convex optimization paradigm, which is used later as a bench mark to verify the performance of proposed DNN based solution. It is observed that DNN provides promising results both in terms of sum rate and the computational complexity.
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The current study was aimed at examining the prescribing patterns of antihypertensive medications, dispensing time, generic prescribing, drug-drug interactions and to determining whether or not prescriptions are consistent with the... more
The current study was aimed at examining the prescribing patterns of antihypertensive medications, dispensing time, generic prescribing, drug-drug interactions and to determining whether or not prescriptions are consistent with the recommendations of the Joint National Committee (JNC-8) guidelines. A cross-sectional study was conducted in three tertiary care hospitals among patients of 30 years and more who visited the outpatient departments (OPDs) from January 2018 to September 2018. Prescription patterns were assessed by reviewing the patient’s prescriptions, who were attending the OPDs of targeted hospitals during the study duration. Drug interactions in prescriptions were checked by using Micromedex® database to detect incompatible drug combinations. A total of 500 prescriptions were collected that met the criteria for inclusion. The sample data consisted of 57% of males with an average age of 54 years. The average time spent by the patients at the dispensing area was barely 1 min, and no proper counselling had provided them how and when to take medicine. One hundred one drug interactions have been identified in prescriptions. The most frequently first line prescribed drug class was found to be calcium channel blockers 27.8%, followed by 26.1% angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, and 16% vasodilators. The trend observed in double combinations was calcium channel blockers + angiotensin receptor blockers (18.6%) followed by vasodilator + Beta-blockers 14.1%, and Beta-blockers + angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor 7.1%. The study findings demonstrated average compliance with the JNC-8 guidelines; none of the drug was prescribed by generic name and had very short dispensing time without counselling; approximately 101 minor and major drug-drug interactions were identified. This multi-factorial phenomenon of average compliance with the guidelines must be addressed in order to ensure the rational and quality use of medicines to improve the quality of life of patients.
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Cancer is one of the greatest causes of mortality worldwide. The prevalence rates of different types of cancer is increasing around the world as well. Limitations in chemotherapy and radiotherapy, owing to multiple side effects including... more
Cancer is one of the greatest causes of mortality worldwide. The prevalence rates of different types of cancer is increasing around the world as well. Limitations in chemotherapy and radiotherapy, owing to multiple side effects including cytotoxic effects of antitumor compounds on normal cells as well as the development of resistance to these treatment options in patients, create a serious threat to successful treatment of cancer. The use of natural compounds to prevent and treat cancers has been found to be quite effective, with fewer adverse effects found in patients. Umbelliprenin (UMB) is a naturally occurring sesquiterpene compound found in Ferula species and recently in Artemisia absinthium. Many studies have highlighted the antitumor potential of UMB in different cancer cell lines as well as in animal models. UMB exerts its anticancer actions by regulating extrinsic and intrinsic apoptotic pathways; causing inhibition of the cell cycle at the G0/G1 phase; and attenuating migr...
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Research Interests: Biochemistry, Biophysics, Materials Science, Chemistry, Hematology, and 10 moreMolecular Biology, Cancer, Virology, Medicine, Adsorption, Sorption, PIM, MP, K, and Selectivity
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Here we present a case of a patient who got trapped in an elevator; on initial evaluation patient was found with bradycardia; on further evaluation electrocardiogram (EKG) showed new onset 2nd-degree Mobitz type 2 AV block. On admission... more
Here we present a case of a patient who got trapped in an elevator; on initial evaluation patient was found with bradycardia; on further evaluation electrocardiogram (EKG) showed new onset 2nd-degree Mobitz type 2 AV block. On admission patient developed ischemic changes on EKG and troponin elevation. Transthoracic echocardiogram showed reduced ejection fraction as well as apical inferior, anterior, lateral, and septal hypokinesia. Coronary angiography showed nonobstructive coronary artery disease and ventriculogram demonstrated anterolateral and apical hypokinesia suggesting takotsubo cardiomyopathy (TCM). Atrioventricular block (AV) is rarely seen as initial presentation of TCM and has a prevalence of about 2.9%. AV block during early presentation of TCM poses a therapeutic dilemma with regard to the timing and the need to place a temporary or permanent pacemaker. The decision to place a permanent pacemaker may be on a case-by-case basis and more research is needed on formulating ...
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The aim of this chapter is to consider an alternative reading of al-Ghazālī’s narrative and enlightenment experience. Our reason for seeking an alternative reading is motivated by the weaknesses of the Sufi account which were highlighted... more
The aim of this chapter is to consider an alternative reading of al-Ghazālī’s narrative and enlightenment experience. Our reason for seeking an alternative reading is motivated by the weaknesses of the Sufi account which were highlighted in the previous chapter. To recall, there were three significant deficiencies associated with al-Ghazālī’s Sufi account. The first deficiency relates to the concern that al-Ghazālī’s account is susceptible to the arguments which he employed against sense perception and reason; that is, there exists a supra-intellectual faculty which must be given epistemic priority. If such a mode of perception did exist, then the deliverances of sense perception and reason could be open to reinterpretation. The problem with this view was that it did not rule out a supra-supra-intellectual perceptual faculty, which, if it were to exist, would take epistemic priority. Accordingly, the deliverances of the supra-intellectual faculty, if such a faculty indeed were to exist, need not be seen as a mode of perception that is wholly immune to doubt. The second deficiency arose from al-Ghazâli’s concession that the feeling of certainty can be decoupled from the truth of a belief. As a consequence, al-Ghazālī’s Sufi account is also undermined, since the Sufi account is said to secure certainty. If, however, al-Ghazālī’s is correct, then the feeling of certainty does not guarantee that the belief, or experience, is aligned with truth.