Revisiting Fiat Regime’s Attainability of Shari’ah Objectives and Possible Futuristic Alternatives

Maqasid of Shari'ah is a millennium old theory on the higher objectives of Islamic divine law. As the discipline of Islamic economics and finance grew in politico-economic importance in the past three decades, a cathartic trend has emerged among Muslim experts to realign economic and financial practices with not merely the minimum legal requirements of religion but also the wisdom and crucial objectives of Shari'ah. An expositive example of this is the monetary economics debate of a Shari'ah consonant currency. Though vast majority of religious clerics have approbated fiat and paper currencies in strict legal terms since the 1980s, a revisionist movement since the mid-1990s seeks to counter it—some going as far as indorsing reversion to gold and silver coinage of medieval Islamic epoch of affluence. Unlike orthodox fiqhi (strict jurisprudentialism) approach that involves legalese with little leeway, Maqasid approach concerns itself with the spirit of the law. This paper operates in the exciting laboratory of Maqasidic framework to appraise the multitudinous role of fiat currency in protecting economic, political, and social public interests, prevention of harm, promotion of egalitarianism, and attainment of ultimate utopic vision of theological and spiritual demands in Shari'ah. The paper contributes, theoretically, by introducing several moral-philosophical arguments against fiat’s compatibility with Shari'ah, and, practically, by prognosticating the future course of discourse in light of advancements in technological innovations—including nascent crypto-currencies.     

Statistical test based on intuitionistic fuzzy hypotheses

In this paper, the classical statistical test based on intuitionistic fuzzy hypotheses in relation to the underlying population parametric is extended. In this approach, the type-I, type-II, power of test, and p-value are extended for intuitionistic fuzzy hypotheses. Throughout the paper, some applied examples are provided for both parametric and non parametric cases to clarify the discussions.     

Racial/Ethnic Minority Vocational Research Trends: An 11‐Year Update

This study extends Flores et al.'s ( 2006 ) 36‐year analysis of racial/ethnic minority (REM) career research to identify recent trends in choice of topics and leading individual and institutional contributors. The authors identified 166 articles on REM career research published from 2005 to 2015 in the Journal of Vocational Behavior, The Career Development Quarterly, the Journal of Career Assessment, and the Journal of Career Development. Of these studies, 92% were empirical, with more than three quarters of these using quantitative rather than qualitative methodology. Most frequently, the empirical studies (n = 153) were based on samples of high school (30.7%) or undergraduate (34.6%) students. The authors discuss the implications of their findings and suggest ways to expand REM career research in the future.     

Association of the modified frailty index with adverse outcomes after penile prosthesis implantation

Objectives: To investigate frailty as a predictor of surgical outcome in elderly patients undergoing penile prosthesis implantation.

Material and methods: A total of 54 elderly patients, above 60 years of age, underwent penile prosthesis implantation between 2012 and 2014. Their data were collected and retrospectively analyzed. A modified frailty index (mFI) was calculated for each patient based on 11 risk factors from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging Frailty Index. The 1-year adverse outcomes were correlated with mFI, patients’ and procedure’s risk factors.

Results: Mean age was 64.9?±?5.2 years. No mortality was reported in our patients, however, one-year adverse outcomes were encountered in 43 (79.6%) patients. Among all studied variables, the 1-year adverse outcomes was not significantly association with mFI, but with preoperative glycosylated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) (p?=?0.031) and associated Peyronie’s disease (PD) (p?=?0.000). HbA1c, dyslipidemia, hypertension, PD and duration of the procedure were predictive of infection complications (p?Conclusions: mFI is not a predictive of post-penile prosthesis implantation adverse outcomes in elderly patients with impotence. Degree of diabetic control and association with PD was associated with the 1-year adverse outcomes and infection complications.     

The effects of learning and forgetting on the optimal lot size quantity of intermittent production runs

This paper studies the effects of learning and forgetting on the production lot size problem with infinite and finite planning horizons. It is assumed that the determination of the economic manufactured quantity (EMQ) in the succeeding production run is dependent on: (1) the maximum inventory accumulated prior to interruption; (2) the length of the interruption period which incurs total forgetting; and (3) the level of experience in equivalent units remembered at the start-up of the next production run. The optimum operating inventory doctrines is obtained by trading off procurement cost per unit time and the inventory carrying cost per unit time, so that their sum will be a minimum. A numerical example is presented to demonstrate the application of learning and forgetting to the determination of the EMQ.     

On reflexivity and the conduct of the self in everyday life: reflections on Bourdieu and Archer

This article provides a critique of the concept of reflexivity in social theory today and argues against the tendency to define agency exclusively in terms of reflexivity. Margaret Archer, in particular, is highlighted as a key proponent of this thesis. Archer argues that late modernity is characterized by reflexivity but, in our view, this position neglects the impact of more enduring aspects of agency, such as the routinization of social life and the role of the taken‐for‐granted. These concepts were pivotal to Bourdieu and Giddens' theorization of everyday life and action and to Foucault's understanding of technologies of the self. We offer Bourdieu's habitus as a more nuanced approach to theorizing agency, and provide an alternative account of reflexivity. Whilst accepting that reflexivity is a core aspect of agency, we argue that it operates to a backdrop of the routinization of social life and operates from within and not outside of habitus. We highlight the role of the breach in reflexivity, suggesting that it opens up a critical window for agents to initiate change. The article suggests caution in over‐ascribing reflexivity to agency, instead arguing that achieving reflexivity and change is a difficult and fraught process, which has emotional and moral consequences. The effect of this is that people often prefer the status quo, rather than to risk change and uncertainty.     

Social Networking and Individual Perceptions: Examining Predictors of Participation

Social networking is a process and practice that draws people and organizations together in an electronic medium. This article explores social interaction-based theories to suggest a social networking participation model that may help organizations understand acceptance or rejection of participation. Responses from 191 public administrators were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM), focusing on relationships between participation and five constructs: perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived improvement potential (PIP), intra-organizational trust, and type of use. The study found favorable model fit statistics that support positive correlations between the latent variables examined and participation in social networking activities. The results demonstrate the potential of the survey instrument to serve as an adoption and participation model to predict and promote social networking activities as they relate to perceived performance improvement.     

Two new estimators of entropy for testing normality

ABSTRACT

We present two new estimators for estimating the entropy of absolutely continuous random variables. Some properties of them are considered, specifically consistency of the first is proved. The introduced estimators are compared with the existing entropy estimators. Also, we propose two new tests for normality based on the introduced entropy estimators and compare their powers with the powers of other tests for normality. The results show that the proposed estimators and test statistics perform very well in estimating entropy and testing normality. A real example is presented and analyzed.