Arabic Figure Research Articles

Amphibious storytellers in Leo Africanus and The Moor’s Account

This article discusses the traces of two Early Modern Arab figures dramatized in The Moor’s Account (2014) by Laila Lalami and Leo Africanus (1992) by Amin Maalouf. Marginality, nomadism, and humanism are dramatized in the lives of Mustafa Al-Zammouri/Estebanico a black Arab from Zammour taken as a slave and sold to a Spanish conquistador who joined the Narváez Expedition and Leo Africanus/Alhassan Alwazzan who was captured by Spanish pirates and sent as a gift to Pope Leo X (1475–1521) around the same time. The lives of those two Early Modern Arab travelers provide the flesh for a bicultural humanism that avoids jingoistic nationalism that is centered around ideas of the canon that excludes narratives and texts from “the other world.” Bicultural humanism, I argue, is a unique space where both Maalouf and Lalami exercise their talent of recovering the lives of the silenced other and in doing so, challenge Orientalist stereotypes by creating dynamic narratives of Arabs and Muslims as complex nomad characters not essentialized violent multitudes enraged at Western modernity.

Catechol-Based Polymers with High Efficacy in Cytosolic Protein Delivery

Catechol-Based Polymers with High Efficacy in Cytosolic Protein Delivery

A Silent Password Recognition Framework Based on Lip Analysis

Securing passwords either written or spoken is considered one of the challenging authentication issues faced by individuals and organizations. Written passwords could be easily stolen by look over, or man-behind, while spoken passwords could be recorded and replayed by attackers. A proposed silent password which is based on a dual security model for lip movement analysis will be a promoting solution to these attacks. The goal of the current research is to propose a hybrid voting framework for silent passwords recognition using lip movement analysis. The proposed framework is built for Arabic language by extracting figures from predefined Arabic lexicon. The predefined lexicon mainly contains the Arabic figures from zero to nine with different shapes. The framework takes a video or sequence of images as an input, and outputs the corresponding silent password for the frames extracted from the input video. In this paper, three techniques will be employed to extract effective visual features from mouth-lip movement. Such techniques are SURF, HoG and Haar feature extractor. The resultant features in each technique are fed separately into a classification model, namely, the hidden Markov model (HMM). The HMM identifies corresponding Arabic figure from a predefined lexicon based on input features. The final classification models that are produced from the three techniques have been grouped in a voting scheme to produce the final classification result. The proposed model will be tested on handcrafted data set of lip movement, and it has shown a promising result with improved accuracy of Arabic figures recognition.

The Integration of Arabo-Islamic Culture into the Emergent Hebrew Culture of Late Ottoman Palestine

This essay explores the ways in which Abraham Shalom Yahuda (1877–1951) mobilizes Arabo-Islamic culture for the construction of Hebrew culture as manifested in his writings that treat Arabic literature. The essay's argument comprises two parts: first, that Yahuda's production of Arabic poetical literature endeavored to familiarize Jewish communities, in particular European Jews, with Arabic culture. As such, I argue that Yahuda did not Hebraize Arabic poetical texts nor he Judaize Arab figures that he treated. Rather, he preserved essential characteristics that were intended to acquaint European Jews with the otherness of Arabs and simultaneously with the Jewish self. Second, Yahuda's efforts also sought to draw a connection between contemporary Jews and their "Israelite brethren"—in Yahuda's words—as Yahuda concurrently urged his Hebrew-reading audience to embrace spiritual and moral values that characterized the Jewish forefathers. Prominent Arab figures, particularly poets, represented the perfect example to transmit moral values that Jews needed in order to restore their relation with the land of their ancestors. In advocating for embracing moral values such as bravery, loyalty, and hospitality, Yahuda's noble Arabs and heroes represented the Orientalism of Arabic culture and its relevance to the Jews of his time, highlighting the common denominators between Arabs and Israelites.

The Intellectual Network of Shaykh Abdusshamad Al-Falimbani and His Contribution in Grounding Islam in Indonesian Archipelago at 18th Century AD

This paper aimed to discuss about the intellectual network of Shaykh Abdusshamad al-Falimbani and his contribution to the grounding of Islam in Indonesia during the 18th century. He was one of the great scholars who had an intellectual network in Indonesian archipelago and Arabian Peninsula. He played a big role in the dissemination of Islamic lecture in both countries. His impact was widely documented in the biographies of the Arabic figure (tarajim) and isnad. Therefore, this study attempted to trace his intellectual network and his contributions to the Islamic world, especially in Indonesia at 18th century. This study used a literature study on the biography of Shaykh Abdusshamad al-Falimbani, information was obtained from literature sources related to him and his work. The results of this study revealed that Shaykh Abdusshamad al-Falimbani had a lot of intellectual networks that connected the Indonesian and Arabian Peninsula’s scholars and played a major role in grounding Islam in Indonesia. This was carried out through the caderization of his students and the publication of his writings, which brought by his students to Indonesia. His works encouraged Indonesian Muslims to adhere to the teachings of Ahlu al-Sunnah wa al-Jama'ah, hold on to syafi’i madzhab, and accept the sunni tasawwuf as the teachings of the Prophet.

Identifying Italian ciphers from continuous-figure ciphertexts (1593)

Italian ciphers of the 16th century often used Arabic figures written continuously without a break. The first step in reading such a ciphertext is to split the continuous sequence of figures into individual cipher symbols. However, this is not straightforward for codebreakers when the cipher symbols are not of fixed length. I succeeded in splitting the continuous sequence into individual symbols for three undeciphered ciphertexts from 1593, which all turned out to employ different schemes. Once the figures were broken into individual groups, the ciphers were simple enough to allow preliminary decipherment without knowledge of Italian.

SUMBANGAN AL-KHALĪL DALAM PERKEMBANGAN NAHWU ARAB

Al-Khalīl was an one of the most important Arabic figures and became the founder of the Bashrah nahw school. Beside nahw, his studies included sharf, and ‘ilm al-aṣwāt. As an expert of nahw, he succeeded in composing nahw terms which include 'āmil, ma'mūl, i'rāb, binā’, ism, and fi'l. The methods he chose to support his theories were simā'i, 'illah, and qiyās. He was the Arab nahw inventor. A harmonizing the real language and the term nahw can be found in his concept.

AN ARABIC FIGURES RECOGNITION MODEL BASED ON AUTOMATIC LEARNING OF LIP MOVEMENT

The need for an automatic speech to text conversion is continuously increasing, especially for people with special needs. Thus, automatic speech recognition techniques have been proposed to tackle such needs. The automatic recognition allows computers to identify words from lip movement, regardless of the visual source. It is known that visual speech recognition techniques improve the accuracy of word identification and shield the recognition system against acoustic noise. In this paper, we propose a hybrid voting model for automatic Arabic figures recognition based on visual perception of mouth-lip movement. The proposed model has been built for Arabic language, such that, it is able to extract Arabic figures from predefined Arabic lexicon. The predefined lexicon mainly contains the Arabic figures from zero to nine with different shapes. The model takes a video (or sequence of images) as an input, and outputs the corresponding Arabic figure for the frames extracted from the input video. Here, three techniques have been employed to extract effective visual features from mouth-lip movement. Such techniques are SURF (speeded up robust features), HoG (histogram of oriented gradient) and Haar feature extractor. The resultant features in each technique are fed separately into a classification model, namely, the hidden Markov model (HMM). The HMM identifies corresponding Arabic figure from a predefined lexicon based on input features. The final classification models that are produced from the three techniques have been grouped in a voting scheme to produce the final classification result (i.e. classification by voting). The proposed model in this paper has been tested on handcrafted data set of lip movement, and it has shown a promising result with improved accuracy of Arabic figures recognition.

Two Marian Iconographic Themes in the Face of Islam on the Adriatic Coast in the Early Modern Period

This paper analyzes the Islamic presence in the paintings of Marian iconography between the 16th and the 18th centuries on both sides of the Adriatic coast, or more precisely the iconography of Disputation over the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of the Rosary, two themes equally and frequently represented in the above mentioned territory. In the first part of the paper we discuss the presence and the role of the famous Arab astrologist Albumasar, active in the 9th century, and the Prophet Muhammad in the context of the iconographic theme of Disputation over the Immaculate Conception, as well as the origin and the meaning of the inscriptions on their scrolls which serve as the interpretative key to understanding the role of the two Arab figures in the context of this particular Marian iconography. In the second part of this essay we analyze the iconography of Our Lady of the Rosary which, after the Battle of Lepanto, acquires a clear political value (when representatives of the Holy League are inserted into the paintings) to become explicitly anti-Ottoman in the 18th century.

Muestras del estrofismo andalusí y su métrica según la poesía hebrea

The first samples of Andalusi Hebrew poetry inspired by the Arabic metric and figures in the 10th century at Cordoba took the form of musammaṭ . Hebrew musammaṭ lends both strophic games and metric changes not tolerated in Hebrew poetry inspired by classical Arabic metrics. This phenomenon will occur throughout all the classical period of the Jews of Andalus (10th-12th centuries). I selected a sample of acrostic Hebrew musammaṭ in order to show this use establishing their date and place. The aim of these samples is to shed some light on two premises currently accepted: the stanzaic structure of the Andalusi poetry is rooted in the musammaṭ and the Hebrew poetry has two metrical models: quantitative and syllabic.

Visual Acuity Testing Using a Random Method Visual Acuity Application

A visual acuity (VA) testing application for the iPad® (Apple, Cupertino, CA) tablet computer using the mirroring technique was developed that randomly presented letters categorized by cognoscibility. The aim of this study was to assess whether measurements of distance VA using this application were in agreement with existing standard clinical tests of VA in adults with normal vision. Forty-three normally sighted subjects were tested using the Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) chart. The log minutes of arc (logMAR) VA results were compared with those from the iPad-based application, which contains a Snellen chart, a Tumbling E chart, a Landolt C chart, and a VA chart consisting of Arabic figures. After a 10-min break, subjects were retested with each test in the same order. Agreement was assessed by determining the 95% limits of agreement ± 1.96 standard deviation of the differences between tests. The logMAR VA showed no significant difference between the ETDRS chart and the iPad Snellen chart (p = 0.66) and iPad Arabic figure chart (p = 0.29). The logMAR VA of the ETDRS chart was significantly better than that of the iPad Tumbling E chart (p < 0.01) or iPad Landolt C chart (p < 0.01). The subjects showed chart letter memory of the ETDRS chart (p < 0.05), Tumbling E chart (p = 0.03), and Landolt C chart (p = 0.001) but not of the iPad Snellen chart (p = 0.62) and iPad Arabic figure chart (p = 0.12). The iPad-based application of VA charts showed similar repeatability and may be a rapid and convenient alternative to some existing measures. The mirroring technique provides portability and accessibility for VA charts.

Recognition of phonetic Arabic figures via wavelet based Mel Frequency Cepstrum using HMMs

This work describes the recognition of phonetic Arabic figures. Speech recognition technology has made steady progress in its 50years history and has succeeded in creating several substantial applications. The goal of speech recognition research is to produce a machine which will recognize accurately the normal human speech from any speaker.To improve the performance of recognition system, an effective and robust technique is proposed to extract speech feature. The input speech signal is decomposed into various frequency channels based on time-frequency multi-resolution property of wavelet analysis. For capturing the characteristics of the signal, the Mel-Frequency Cepstrum Coefficients “MFCCs” of the wavelet channels are calculated. Hidden Markov Models “HMMs” were used for the recognition stage. Different forms of wavelet functions were used to evaluate the best wavelet signal to extract the best features of the signals. It is found that the wavelet signal “db8” gives the highest values of recognition accuracy rate. A recognition rate of 98% was obtained using the proposed feature extraction technique.A comparison between different features of speech is given. The features based on the Cepstrum give accuracy of 94% for speech recognition while the features based on the short time energy in time domain give accuracy of 92%. The features based on formant frequencies give accuracy of 95.5%. It is clear that the features based on MFCCs with accuracy of 98% give the best accuracy rate. So the features depend on MFCCs with HMMs may be recommended for recognition of the spoken Arabic digits.

Abstract 4057: Functional domain of Annexin A4: which domain is indispensable for chemoresistance to platinum drugs.

Abstract Background: Platinum drugs are often used for the postoperative adjuvant therapy or treatment in advanced and recurrent ovarian cancer. We have previously reported that ovarian clear cell carcinoma (CCC) has increased expression of Annexin A4 (Anx A4) in comparison with other subtype of ovarian cancer. Enhanced expression of Anx A4 has been shown to induce chemoresistance via extracellular efflux of carboplatin. Purpose: To identify the domain of Anx A4 relevant to chemoresistance. Materials and methods: Anx A4 possesses the NH2-terminal domain and four annexin repeat domains with one Ca2+-binding site in each domain. Deleting annexin repeat domains one by one from C-terminal site, we generated four deletion mutants of Anx A4 named R1, 2, 3, and 4 (arabic figure shows the number of annexin repeat domains). Stable cell lines overexpressing each deletion mutants were established in NUGC3 cells. Chemosensitivity to platinum drugs was evaluated using the MTT assay. Results. Compared with mock transfected cells, all the four deletion mutants induced chemoresistance to both cisplatin and carboplatin. Conclusions. The deletion derivative covering only one annexin repeat domain can induce chemoresistance to platinum drugs. Further study is underway to determine the specific site for chemoresistance of Anx A4. Citation Format: Akiko Morimoto, Takayuki Enomoto, Shinya Matsuzaki, Kousuke Hiramatsu, Yutaka Ueda, Kiyoshi Yoshino, Masami Fujita, Takuhei Yokoyama, Satoshi Serada, Tetsuji Naka, Tadashi Kimura. Functional domain of Annexin A4: which domain is indispensable for chemoresistance to platinum drugs. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 4057. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-4057

Social Reformations of Jibran Khalil Jibran in the Novel “AlAjniha Al-Mutakassira” (The Broken Wings)

Social Reformations of Jibran Khalil Jibran in the Novel “AlAjniha Al-Mutakassira” (The Broken Wings)

The Arabs as Nazis? Some Reflections on “Islamofascism” and Arab Anti-Semitism

One of the main constituents of the so-called Islamofascism is, in the eyes of those who subscribe to this conception, the close affinity of Arabs (and sometimes, Muslims) to Nazi ideology and possibly practice. To bolster this notion, its proponents do basically three things: first, they try to prove that a massive majority of Arabs took a pro-Nazi stand during the Third Reich and especially during World War II and that important Arab figures collaborated with Nazi Germany during the War. Secondly, they point to widespread—real and alleged—anti-Jewish beliefs among present-day Arabs. And thirdly, they claim that there is a personal, political and ideological continuity between both phenomena and that, thus, present-day Arab Judeophobia has the same character, scope and possible effect as the anti-Semitism of the Nazis. During the War, so the argument goes, Arab attitudes were part and parcel of Nazi ideology, and they largely retained this quality although, after the War, Nazism was overcome in Europe. In this article, three more recent publications which subscribe to the above mentioned argument will be critically discussed.

Using human figure drawing as a tool for examining self-perception and emotional attitudes among Jewish and Arab children in Israel

The study examined ingroup and outgroup perceptions among Jewish and Arab children in Israel. The sample comprised 191 children aged 10–12, 131 Jewish and 60 Arab participants who live in a mixed city. The main instrument used to examine the children's perceptions was a multidimensional analysis of Jewish and Arab figures drawn by the participants, as well as a questionnaire relating to the drawn figures. The findings revealed that, even though they lived in a mixed city and studied in the same classes, the Jewish children differentiated between the figures and overwhelmingly preferred Jewish figures to Arab figures. Moreover, they revealed negative stereotypes and expressed aggression in drawings of Arab figures. In contrast, among the Arab participants, the findings were inconsistent. In most of the variables, they did not distinguish between the various figures. However, in the quality variables, they tended to prefer figures of their own nationality and rejected Jewish figures. The findings are discussed in relation to the context of the residential environment (a mixed city), majority-minority status, and the Israeli-Arab conflict.

National Symbols and National Identity: Currency and Constructing Cosmopolitans in Tunisia

This article examines the imagery on Tunisian banknotes and its role in constructing a state-sponsored vision of Tunisian national identity. In addition to analyzing the currency itself, the article embeds the symbols used on the money in a social and historical context by looking at other public uses of the historical figures pictured and drawing on ethnographic work conducted in Tunisia. The article suggests that the banknotes must be seen as part of a larger discourse about the nature of Tunisian identity. In particular, this discourse focuses on Tunisia as a cosmopolitan nation that is open to the modern world and posits that this openness is rooted in its history. Although the currency suggests the co-presence of modernity and tradition, tradition is relegated to the rural margins while the urban centers are celebrated as the modern future. Beyond looking at the historical figures represented, the article examines historical absences. Most notably, there are no pre-modern Arab figures on the banknotes, which reflects an ambivalent relationship with an Arab identity. This ambivalence is also reflected in the usages of French and Arabic, which tend to naturalize French in a manner not found in other North African currency.

Phonetic recognition of Arabic figures based on formant analysis via artificial neural network

This paper describes a speaker recognition for dependent and independent speaker systems based on the formant analysis technique. Also, this system is used for Arabic figure recognition. Linear predictive code (LPC) is applied for extracting the formants of the Arabic digits from 0–9. After training and selecting the proper network structure, the recognition accuracy is found to be 98.8% for the dependent system while it is 78.8% for the independent case. Recognition accuracy for independent speaker is improved to 95.5% when grouping the Arabic digits into three groups.

Un sistema di conto poco conosciuto : la « mano da quattro»

Summary. - The article is a contribution to historical metrology. A rare system of account is discussed, based on « a hand of four units », mentioned in a document dated Naples 1483 ; another example is dated Venice 1353. Such system of account was used to simplify reckoning of large sums. There is also evidence of a parallel use of Arabic and Roman numerals in the same document, with Arabic figures used for quick multiplication and Roman ones for writing the total.

Automatic Recognition Technique of Vehicle Number Plates and its Applications

A new recognition algorithm ot vehicle number plates (VNP) Is developed using computer vision techniques. Discussion, In detail are focused on three problems, 1) Coarse-flne differentia, method based on character stroke features tor fast extraction ot number plate from a car front scene. 2) Character segmentation and recognition method on their externa, contour features, vertical and horizontal projections, topological parameters. 3) Its applications. This paper describes the module configuration of a personal computer based automatic recognition system. The accuracy rates of plate detection and Arabic figure recognition are about 99% and 95%, respectively.