~ G-volution

Asalam alaikum,

The other day i was thoroughly amazed to know that my audi A6 mechanic is infact a molecular biologist
:O
i asked him as to what on earth was he doing in a car-ridden garage instead?
To my unsurprise though, he pointed towards his awesomely handsome earnings, his BMW & his yemeni nationality barring him from government run high-profile specialized (& saudialized) laboratories.
He asked me to teach him english linguistic skills (on top of presenting a persian cat as a gift).
I asked him to teach me arabic instead, & keep his pet since his lil kids were all teary on their father's decision.

On the more -
I'm interested in this system;
(a want & not a need)

►http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyy8Z-39aOs

Returning -

Telecommunications, especially mobile communication has been through drastic changes in recent years, & there is no sign of stopping to rest anytime sooner.

Remember the days when mobile unit was hard to fit in deepest of pockets with a single technology? & now a palm device holds a whole plethora of multiple technologies!..

The vision of doing better, & faster has lead us from narrow band digital 2G, to wide-band 3G with internet access, with us knocking the doors of all IP packet switched network; Next-Gen ultra-boardband 4G - where G stands for generation & not just guesstimation.

Fourth-generation (4G) mobile systems dictate entirely new approaches & novel infrastructure solutions to seamlessly integrate the existing wireless technologies including wireless broadband (WiBro), 802.16e, CDMA, wireless LAN, Bluetooth, and etc.

The key features of 4G mobile systems can be summarized as follows.
First, 4G mobile systems are all-IP based heterogeneous networks that allow users to use any system at any time and anywhere.
Then, 4G mobile systems provide end-users with high-speed, large volume, good quality, global coverage, and flexibility to roam between different types of technologies.
Finally, 4G mobile systems provide high-data-rate services to accommodate numerous multimedia applications such as video conferencing, on-line gaming, etc.

Yet the vision still continues...

What comes up is 5G..
& what stores in for 5G?
Well, for one, one of the candidate candy ideas is the use of 'Cognition' in communicating mobile.
The vision to give emotions & feelings to the mobile set itself to sense its surroundings.

The motivation behind cognition is efficient utilization of one of the most precious (& costly for telecom companies for that matter) resources in telecom; the frequency band.  Since even at its busiest, current technology is not capable to consume the alloted band completely & every now & then chunks of this precious resource are left unused here & there; referred to as spectrum holes.

5G promises to utilize this otherwise wasted portions of frequency, by putting intelligence or cognition in a mobile set. Two types of users are envisioned in this recent paradigm; primary users, secondary users.

Primary users have priority over secondary users, i.e.; secondary users could only gobble up the leftover pieces of the pie (frequency band).
The challenge is in finding those left-overs portions, as they keep on changing their position and size.
This calls on for sensing of the environment (radio sensing), and then analyzing it (radio scene analysis) and finally predicting the next empty slot. Only then 5G technology will have the ability carryout a meaningful communication.

Cognitive Radio is the new hype..
cog. rad. band wagon is now the focus of attention & tremendous research efforts are going down this direction.

wonder how many generations will come n go..
& like ever propping up dimensions (specially after the discovery of quantum mechanics) we'll end up with like 15 G or something..

So lets just make hay while the sun shines!

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ AlhamduliLLAh

Asalam alaikum,

The day is a heavy day..
i just received a reply for my application.. stating that all faculty positions are full.
AlhamduliLLAh..
'but' its hard & Allah knows..

In comparison, this weak alhamduliLLAh of mine reminds me of a lady, who lives here & worked at a local school.
I came to know that she was a widow with two sons & a daughter.
Her elder son, on whom she invested much, & who grew up to get a good education & nice job with a cool '0' meter flashy car, met with a horribly fatal accident on Yanbu highway & died on spot.
The guy was 25 & his mother was in pakistan to shop for the upcoming marriage of his engaged son.
He was burried in Makkah Mukarramah alongside his father.

Life went on..

Her daughter got married.. & the younger son grew up to be independent with a car of his own & both mother & son went to Madinah Munawwarah.
On their way back, they met with a horrible accident.. mother survived, boy din't.
He was 25, engaged & soon to be married.
When she woke up in the hospital & was able enough to bear the burden of the news, the doctors told her about it & told her to do Sabr & say 'AlhamduliLLAH', so they can proceed with the burial.
She din't say it right away.. for her grief won't let her believe..
The docs asked her to say 'AlhamduliLLAH', so they can proceed with the burial, because they couldn't proceed if not given the consent of the mother (in form of AlhmaduliLLAh).
Eventually.. she uttered AlhamduliLLah..
And it was then, that he was buried in Madinah Munawwarah.

The power of alhamduliLLAH.. & life goes on with her today.

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ Med Shred #1

Salam alaikum,

Thought to revisit here after a sporadic hiatus owing to a bit of blogathy & more of blogstipation really.

Its been a while since I've been pestering insisting my spouse to maintain an online collection of her learning experiences. Not only will it serve as a first hand experience narrative, but may prove to be priceless resource in the long run too (inshAllah).

But, as it turns out.. there are some time issues in way of sitting & organizing thoughts, i suppose - a difficult thing indeed.

Nonetheless, every now & then i'll be posting here whatever bits I receive from her & reproduce them as is (albeit a lil face-lifting though :p) on this blog of mine, till such time i set up a new one for her own personal use.

Title of such entries will remain the same, as in; 'Med Shreds' with a sequel #.
Here goes the first one;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By: Dr. Naz. S.

I got convinced lately, that there are not many informal cancer resources online. None in Riyadh that I know of.
I've been told that jotting down daily learning in a bullet form, will help boost the response in upcoming challenges.
I've also been told that if I do that, it'll be like an online encyclopedia for people to cross reference on things I've recollected over time.
So, after making a good intention, of sharing knowledge in which ever way possible for the greater benefit of humanity, I will be writing (inshAllah) from now onwards.

He was an inspirational speaker, a visionary & carried out revolutionary work in health & education sectors.
Its been long since King Faisal died an unexpected death.
But his hospital which was inaugurated in 1975, still continues to be (sadqah jariyah) one of he best in whole of the middle east, its research center being the only recognized center of excellence in the whole region (besides israel).

The other day I heard Dr saheb ask tess; "Is the new physician at her seat?.. if yes send her in!"
I kind of felt like being summoned for another viva. But times have changed. Gone are the golden soul crushing days of med school life.

The discussion that day was just about how things were going with me, & if i was finding the patient follow up work interesting at all.

Dr. Saheb, who is an Allama Iqbal med school graduate, a Brooklyn Downstate hospital trained M.D., a Medical Oncologist Consultant, was narrating how the center has achieved yet another prestigious membership of an International Cancer Research body, & the amount of effort placed into it in terms of patient follow up & data collection.

In the course, he asked me to define a one liner difference between a tumor stage & a tumor grade, also asked me to describe in a sentence whats a tumour marker, where is it produced, its role?

Then went on to ask for types & phases of clinical trial (of which i was unaware, as i am fairly new to this kind of stuff)

He gently asked me to go grab a gist of what a clinical trial is, its origin prerequisites, & get a grip of its phases etc, & get back to him with whatever i gained..

I started exploring & reading & came to know the basic salient stand points that demarcate Clinical trials on humans from those on animals.

Although it is understandable to focus on goals of contributing to the field of science, keeping in mind our society values & the rights and welfare of individuals, but it is not considered ethical behavior to use humans solely as means to an end.
So, in order to exhibit & lay down the importance of demonstrating respect for research participants, there are certain set of principles used to define ethical research and the regulations, policies, and guidance.

In my self study session for the given assignment, I came to know that the first ever concept of a Clinical Trial (more so an ethical clinical trial) was  introduced by Ibn e Seena (Aivcenna) in 1025 A.D in his bool Al-Qanoon fi al-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine).

It was a time when Muslim world was the pioneer in Research & Development.

He laid down rules for the experimental use and testing of drugs on human subjects, and wrote a precise scientific guide for practical experimentation for discovering and proving the effectiveness of medical drugs.
Ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina simple rules and principles for testing the effectiveness of new medications form the basis of modern clinical trials:

• The drug must be free from any extraneous accidental quality.
• It must be used on a simple, not a composite, disease.
• The drug must be tested with two contrary types of diseases, because sometimes a drug cures one disease by its essential qualities and another by its accidental ones.
• The quality of the drug must correspond to the strength of the disease. For example, there are some drugs whose heat is less than the coldness of certain diseases, so that they would have no effect on them.
• The time of action must be observed, so that essence and accident are not confused.
• The effect of the drug must be seen to occur constantly or in many cases, for if this did not happen, it was an accidental effect.
• The experimentation must be done with the human body, for testing a drug on a lion or a horse might not prove anything about its effect on man.

Qanoon (which means "law" in Arabic), the Canon of Medicine remained a medical authority up until early 19th century. It set the standards for medicine in Europe and the Islamic world, and is Abu Ali ibn AbduLLAh's most renowned written work alongside Kitab al-Shifa (The Book of Healing).
Qanoon was used at many medical schools—at University of Montpellier, France for instance, as late as 1650, to understand the basis & ethics of research. Much of the book was also translated into Chinese as the Huihui Yaofang (Prescriptions of the Hui Nationality). The Canon also formed the basis of Unani medicine, a form of traditional medicine practiced in subcontinent.
The principles of medicine described by the Qanoon ten centuries ago are still taught at UCLA and Yale University, among others, as part of the history of medicine.

Then I came to know that physician Frederick Akbar Mahomed of subcontinent origin, who worked at Guy's Hospital in London made substantial contributions to the study of high blood pressure during his short professional career from 1872 to 1884, when he died at the age of 35.
In the process of clinical trials during his detailed clinical studies, he separated chronic nephritis with secondary hypertension from what we now term in medical as 'essential hypertension'.
He also founded 'the Collective Investigation Record for the British Medical Association'; this organization collected data from physicians practicing outside the hospital setting (extramural) and was the precursor of modern collaborative clinical trials & medical transcription.

Another famous clinical trial was James Lind's demonstration in 1747 that citrus fruits cure scurvy disease. He compared the effects of various different acidic substances, ranging from vinegar to cider, on groups of afflicted sailors, and found that the group who were given oranges and lemons had largely recovered from scurvy after 6 days.

Dr. Saheb asked me to take a 3 hours online certification exam on 'Protecting Human Research Participants in clinical trials.'
It was basically a test of medical ethics, mainly regarding how to be gentle, generous & at the same time meticulous with your patients.
Questions revolved around some basic qualities like Justice, Beneficence & Respect for persons, their medical rights, their Anonymity & their Autonomy.
I scored 20 out of 21 (alhamduliLLAh).

Its just the beginning of the journey full of learning & serving & sawab (hopefully)

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ SubhanAllah

Salam alaikum,

Even in the events surrounding us are signs for those who ponder..

Allah is uniting us through the name of his beloved Rasool (salaLLAhu alehi wa alihi wassalam - fidaa ummi wa abi) & the cause for his honor.. some 1,500 years after him.

The phenomenal activism is just mind blowing & its pretty humbling, i'd say, to see Muslims of all colors, races, ethnicities & Jama'at platforms left & right unifying for this cause.. subhanAllah.

Video

Rulings & Jurisprudence;

Our attitude concerning mockery of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)

http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/86109

Regarding the hadeeth about the blind man who killed his slave woman because she reviled the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him)

http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/103739

Confusion about the hadeeth of the blind man 

http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/111252

Ruling on one who insults the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) 

http://www.islamqa.com/en/ref/22809

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ The Secret Door

Salam alaikum,

Much has been going on this past week in my head (& in real life ofcourse :p), specially since a journal dead-line is fast approaching & the time is neigh.

I was mulling over multiple speedy options including telecommuting (which - unlike the general perception - needs a lot of freelance selfemployed selfdiscipline), specially when my dean will be on a hiatus, flying off to france pretty soon, only to return next month - inshAllah.

It was close to getting all overwhelming & before i'd freak out, I was provided with this nice read by my consort from one of her med handbooks & clinical training manuals.. & somehow it all made quite a relevant sense to me in these times, even though i've nothing to do with this field whatsoever.

Here goes the refreshing read;


On being busy: Corrigan’s secret door;

“I work much better in chaos”..
- Francis Bacon.

Chaos is not always an enemy: certainly there is no shortage of it in hospitals, consulting rooms, and other battle-grounds.

Can we prepare ourselves to use chaos well? Being fore-warned allows us to be fore-armed, enabling us to adapt to being busy, or at least to wink at each other as we slide down the cascade of long hours--> excessive paperwork--> too few beds--> effort_reward_imbalance--> compromised care from too few resources--> trouble with superiors--> difficult patients--> too many deaths--> failure to reconcile personal and family life with professional roles.

Thus, Logistic regression shows our consequent problems are predicted by 5 stressors:
1 Lack of recognition of own contribution by others.
2 Too much responsibility.
3 Difficulties keeping up to date.
4 Making the right decision alone.
5 Effects of stress on personal/family life.

We may think that it is modern medicine that makes us ever busier, but doctors have always been busy.
Dr. James Paget, for example, would regularly see over patients each day, sometimes travelling many miles, on his horse, to their bedsides.

Dr. Dominic Corrigan was so busy 180 years ago that he had a secret door made in his consulting room to escape the ever-growing queue of eager patients.

We are all familiar with the phenomenon of being hopelessly over-stretched, and of wanting Corrigan’s secret door. Competing, urgent, and simultaneous demands make carrying out any task all but impossible: the junior doctor is trying to put up an intravenous infusion on a shocked patient when his ‘bleep’ sounds. On his way to the phone a patient is falling out of bed, being held in, apparently, only by his visibly lengthening catheter (which had taken the doctor an hour to insert). He knows he should stop to help but, instead, as he picks up the phone, he starts to tell Sister about “this man dangling from his catheter” (knowing in his heart that the worst will have already happened). But he is interrupted by a thud coming from the bed of the lady who has just had her varicose veins attended to: however, it is not her, but her visiting husband who has collapsed and is now having a seizure. In despair, he turns to the nurse and groans:
“There must be some way out of here!!”..

At times like this we all need Corrigan to take us by the shadow of our hand, and walk with us through a metaphorical secret door into a calm inner world. To enable this to happen, make things as easy as possible for yourself—as follows;

First, however lonely you feel, you are not usually alone. Do not pride yourself on not asking for help. If a decision is a hard one, share it with a colleague.

Second, take any chance you get to sit down and rest. Have a cup of coffee with other members of staff, or with a friendly patient (patients are sources of renewal, not just devourers of your energies).

Third, do not miss meals. If there is no time to go to the canteen, ensure that food is put aside for you to eat when you can: hard work and sleeplessness are twice as bad when you are hungry.

Fourth, avoid making work for yourself. It is too easy for junior doctors, trapped in their image of excessive work and blackmailed by misplaced guilt, to remain on the wards reclerking patients, rewriting notes, or rechecking results at an hour when the priority should be caring for themselves.

Fifth, when a bad part of the rota is looming, plan a good time for when you are off duty, to look forward to during the long nights.

However busy the ‘on take’ or 'on call', your period of duty will end.
For you, as for Macbeth:

'come what come may,

time and the hour runs through the roughest day.'

Riding the wave;

In Macbeth, toil and trouble go hand in hand, but sometimes we work best when we are busy. This is recognized in the aphorism that if you want a job done quickly, give it to a busy (wo)man. Observe your colleagues and yourself during a busy day. Sometimes our energy achieves nothing but our own inundation. At other times, by jettisoning everything non-essential, we get airborne and accomplish marvellous feats. As with any sport, we have to break into a sweat before we can get into the zone, where every action meets its mark.

But note that what keeps us riding the wave of a busy day is not what we jettison but what we retain: humour, courtesy, a recognition of the work of others, and an ability to twinkle.

A smile causes no delays, and reaches far beyond our lips.

In our public medical personas, we often act as though morality consisted only in following society’s conventions: we do this not so much out of laziness but because we recognize that it is better that the public think of doctors as old-fashioned or stupid, than that they should think us evil. But in the silences of our consultations, when it is we ourselves who are under the microscope, then, wriggle as we may, we cannot escape our destiny, which is to lead as often as to follow, in the sphere of ethics. To do this, we need to return to first principles, and not go with the flow of society’s expectations.

To give us courage in this enterprise, we can recall the aviator’s and the seagull’s law:
'it is only by facing the prevailing wind that we can become airborne, and achieve a new vantage point from which to survey our world.'

Our analysis starts with our aim: to do good by making people healthy. 'Good' is the most general term of commendation, and entails four cardinal duties:
1 Not doing harm. We owe this duty to all people, not just our patients.
2 Doing good by positive actions. We particularly owe this to our patients.
3 Promoting justice—i.e. distributing scarce resources fairly and respecting rights: legal rights, rights to confidentiality, rights to be informed, to be offered all the options, and to be told the truth...
4. Promoting autonomy.

Don’t think of good and evil as forever opposite; good can come out of evil, and vice versa - this fundamental mix-up explains why we learn more from our dissolute patients than we do from saints..

[...so on & so forth]

Source

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ Projects

Salam alaikum,

While having a lil light chit chat with a good friend of mine, he sent some funny stuff my way.
A disgruntled I.T dude, as he is, its kinda expected coming form him.
umm..
a bit too gynecological (or obstetric?) perspective of IT, i dare say :D.. but here goes nothing;

I.T. Designations:

1) Project Manager is a person who thinks nine women can deliver a baby in One month.

2) Developer is a person who thinks it will take 18 months to deliver a baby.

3) Onsite Coordinator is one who thinks a single woman can deliver nine babies in one month.

4) Client is the one who doesn't even know why he wants a baby.

5) Marketing Manager is a guy who thinks he can deliver a baby even if no man and woman are available.

6) Resource Optimization Team reckons they don't need a man or woman; they'll produce a child with zero resources.

7) Documentation Team deems they don't care whether the child is delivered, they'll just document 9 months.

8) Quality Auditor is the person who is never happy with the PROCESS of baby production.

And lastly..

9) Tester is a person who always tells his spouse that this is not the Right baby!

The How's :

>> How a web-design goes straight to hell?

That's how !

>> How projects really work?
click the below to zoom..

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ Busy Behind the Wheel

Salam alaikum,

Over & over again, i get warned by my family not to attend my cell while driving.. not that i compose sms or text something, but some calls from professors are just too important.

I ignore this advice saying that i can handle & am too good for this lil distraction & sometimes even dismiss it as too much ado about nothing..

Not until i was asked to play this lil game, which i played twice.. & scored.. well not too bad enough.. alhamduliLLAh :p

(gates missed the first time were 0% too, with an average delay while texting..)

But still not too good either, since real life is sorta different & makes me think i should really rethink my cell strategy from behind the wheel..

Its Distracted_Driver game by NYT to gauge your distraction while you're texting on the road. The game puts you driving on a road having to negotiate a number of toll booths along the way, to see how good you go. And thus it tests your ability to drive through the correct gates without any distractions, and then it makes you write a couple of text messages whilst still having to negotiate the booths.
After you finish the game, you get a comparison of your result with everyone else who has played so far.
P.S; I did see the gray lady the first time but failed the second time..

Digging through some papers i figured that the science of mobile phone use whilst driving is a developing field, with most of the recent research suggesting that you are just as impaired - or more so - if texting or using a hand-held mobile as you are if you are disillusioned or semiconscious (sleepy).

A couple of great resources if you are interested at all:

• SWOV Fact sheet: Use of mobile phone while driving was published in 2008 by The national road safety research institute (SWOV). It contains a great deal of up-to-date research. Their conclusion is that the negative effects of mobile phone use whilst driving are caused by both physical and cognitive distraction. Although physical distraction can be reduced through the use of such aids as handsfree phones and speed dialling, cognitive distraction remains the crucial problem. They conclude that handsfree phones do not have significant safety advantages over handheld phones. They also point towards research suggesting that talking on a mobile phone is associated with cognitive distraction that may undermine pedestrian safety.
• Applied Cognition Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Utah - has published a wealth of research on the impact of using in-car technologies on driving performance and traffic safety. It is well worth a browse of their published articles.

Oh n before i forget, check out the Distracted_Driver game & try it out yourself - if you too are into tech_behind_wheel ailment.

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ Mind the Gap plz

Asalm alaikum,

Whether we want to believe it or no; Much of the world has been engulfed into globalization, for good or for worse.

As I've been scribbling & has scribbled in past that application of statistics is mind-numbingly dull, but statistics can be quite interesting when you dig deep down into the foundations..& a way - i might add - to understand the world better.

While wolframalpha has achieved a milestone in this statistical analysis - & i've been pleased to share info with my peeps - Minding the gaps (as opposed to mind-mapping) has been an awesome way of bridging such statistical gaps that prevailed the stat-horizon in yesteryears.

Gapminder
[Say no if /when asked for aborting of the flash-script.]

Here is what I tested

So, as the gap-minder guru Hans says;

"It seems you move much faster up the graph if you're healthy first than if you're wealthy first. And health can't be bought at a supermarket, you've to invest in health & educate the population."

Apparently Professor Hans talking here [Toggle full-screen in top right corner of vid-box to see subtitles clearly] uses world Development Indicators from The World Bank :/ (& UN & certain NGOs)

You will see a scatterplot where each bubble represents a country.
The position of the bubble is determined by the indicators on the axes.
The size of the bubble represents the population of the country.
And then you can play the whole thing to see the trail_of_trend.

As it turns out, recently the world bank has opened up its world-data for the world out there, based upon this same work from Hans. And they did that under the pretext of; 'being informed about the world stats is the first step towards a better humanity..' yada yada.

No matter how flashy slogans they use, its not that such usury-driven, lust-ridden capitalist can offer anything better to the world, except for forced abortions & vigorous family-plannings to their credit.

Anywho, you can put together a prototype Gapminder chart in your Excel too.

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ My Miscellany..

Salam alaikum,

SubhanAllah..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH1aBTKpWtw&hl




Sweet..
MashAllah
http://www.youtube.com/v/5cxNWc72iww&hl




Big things come in small packets..
awesome transformation!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak&hl

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~

~ TIC

Asalam alaikum,

Sitting in marriot conference hall, attending international symposium on cancer research (on earnest pestering insistence of my consort), getting virtually wounded by bro @yousaf who'se imploring me to get back to my office ASAP owing to a visit from TIC guys.

What's that makes the Technical_Innovation_Center people special?

Well, pretty much everything from boost in our salaries to a whole advancement in our work-place to a new housing-scheme (perhaps i get to stay there), to a whole new technology park, so on & so forth.

Not that my current work-place ain't comfortable enough, competent or equipped enough...

Its just that once our researcher-team gets to get selected in this nation-wide selection & competition_for_excellence, we'll get a chance to implore a whole new world & new technological horizons.

For the past couple of weeks, i was busy scribbling down a 100-page report & preparing some slides for these guys. Its interesting when you get into the writing business as a researcher, your writing will & skill blooms (just like anyother thing you spend much of your time on, for that matter.) - which explains the reason behind creativity (complexity?) of prose, peeps have been asking about.

TIC Lab view;

The nation-wide lucky guy(s) or research teams will be chosen next week.

Lets see how it turns out to be.

May Allah make them decide whatever is beneficial for us all.

~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*~