Saturday, August 30, 2008
Handy Tips for a Safe Ramadan for the worker…………
Here you go......
SIGNS/SYMPTOMS TO WATCH OUT:
• Dizziness/Headaches/Severe weakness.
• Blackout/Fainting.
• Sleepiness on the job/Inability to concentrate/Confusion
• Exhaustion.
PRECAUTIONS
• Take a diet of fruit based food .
• Take more porridge & soup. Reduce meat.
• Avoid excessive fatty food.
• Get adequate Rest and sleep.
• Reduce working hours.
• Try to work after opening of fast.
• Take frequent breaks.
If you don’t feel well- SAY SO & GET HELP
After the Fast remember...
• Drink plenty of water
• Remember tea & coffees dehydrate.
• Indoor worker with little physical activity should drink 6-8 glasses
minimum
• Physical work needs more- 4 to 5 L [20 or more glasses]
WORKERS
• Shower during shift and change uniform for freshness if possible.
• Wear loose comfortable clothes to allow air circulation.
• Be extra careful if you have recently returned from vacation/or are new
to the job.
• Pace your work & take frequent breaks.
• Clean mouth frequently as fasting gives a bad odour .
• Proper ablution is refreshing so do it.
• Take a stool softener or bulk forming herbal supplement to reduce
constipation.
• Catch up on rest on Fridays-avoid heavy social agendas.
REMEMBER IF YOU ARE NOT FEELING WELL/HAVE A HEALTH PROBLEM OR ARE
TRAVELLING YOU ARE EXEMPTED FROM FASTING
If you need further assistance please contact your
local HS&E Specialist or you medical services
Provided By: Occupational Health Department
JEBEL ALI MEDICAL CENTRE
SIGNS/SYMPTOMS TO WATCH OUT:
• Dizziness/Headaches/Severe weakness.
• Blackout/Fainting.
• Sleepiness on the job/Inability to concentrate/Confusion
• Exhaustion.
PRECAUTIONS
• Take a diet of fruit based food .
• Take more porridge & soup. Reduce meat.
• Avoid excessive fatty food.
• Get adequate Rest and sleep.
• Reduce working hours.
• Try to work after opening of fast.
• Take frequent breaks.
If you don’t feel well- SAY SO & GET HELP
After the Fast remember...
• Drink plenty of water
• Remember tea & coffees dehydrate.
• Indoor worker with little physical activity should drink 6-8 glasses
minimum
• Physical work needs more- 4 to 5 L [20 or more glasses]
WORKERS
• Shower during shift and change uniform for freshness if possible.
• Wear loose comfortable clothes to allow air circulation.
• Be extra careful if you have recently returned from vacation/or are new
to the job.
• Pace your work & take frequent breaks.
• Clean mouth frequently as fasting gives a bad odour .
• Proper ablution is refreshing so do it.
• Take a stool softener or bulk forming herbal supplement to reduce
constipation.
• Catch up on rest on Fridays-avoid heavy social agendas.
REMEMBER IF YOU ARE NOT FEELING WELL/HAVE A HEALTH PROBLEM OR ARE
TRAVELLING YOU ARE EXEMPTED FROM FASTING
If you need further assistance please contact your
local HS&E Specialist or you medical services
Provided By: Occupational Health Department
JEBEL ALI MEDICAL CENTRE
Preparing for Ramadhan,
Syukur Rahmat, the holy month is coming, hurry guys grab the chances, here some tips that I guess we cannot disregard:
Dr. Farouk Haffejee of the Islamic Medical Association of South Africa
(Durban) has created a list of recommendations for dealing with
Ramadhan in a healthy fashion. They deal with common problems
encountered in Ramadhan.
Dr. Haffejee suggests that in the month of Ramadhan, "our diet should
not differ very much from our normal diet and should be as simple as
possible." He says that our diet should maintain our normal weight,
although he does mention that if one is over-weight,
Ramadhan is a good time to shed some pounds.
He also recommends foods that last longer.
"In view of the long hours of fasting, we should consume slow
digesting foods including fibre containing-foods rather than
fast-digesting foods. Slow digesting foods last up to 8 hours, while
fast-digesting foods last for only 3 to 4 hours," writes Dr. Haffejee.
Slow-digesting foods are foods that contain grains and seeds such as
barley, wheat, oats, semolina, beans, lentils, wholemeal flour, and
unpolished rice. These are called complex carbohydrates.
Fast-burning foods are foods that contain ingredients such as sugar
and white flour. They are called refined carbohydrates.
According to Dr. Haffejee, whole wheat, grains, seeds, vegetables
(like green beans, peas, and spinach), fruit with skin, dried fruit
(such as dried apricots, figs, prunes, and almonds) are all examples
of fibre-containing foods.
Dr. Haffejee says that meals in Ramadhan should be well-balanced, and they should contain foods from each food group, such as fruits,
vegetables, meat/chicken/fish, bread/cereals and dairy products.
He discourages fried foods that some of us are addicted to.
"Fried foods are unhealthy and should be limited. They cause
indigestion, heart-burn, and weight problems," Dr. Haffejee points out.
Below are Dr. Haffejee's recommendations for a Ramadhan diet:
AVOID:
Fried and fatty foods.
Foods containing too much sugar.
Over-eating especially at suhoor.
Too much tea at suhoor: Tea makes you pass more urine taking with it
valuable mineral salts that your body would need during the day.
Smoking cigarettes: If you cannot give up smoking, cut down gradually
starting a few weeks before Ramadhan. Smoking is unhealthy and one should stop completely.
EAT:
Complex carbohydrates at suhoor so that the food lasts longer making
you less hungry.
Dates are excellent source of sugar, fibre, carbohydrates, potassium
and magnesium.
Almonds are rich in protein and fibre with less fat.
Bananas are a good source of potassium, magnesium and carbohydrates.
DRINK:
As much water or fruit juices as possible between iftar and bedtime so that your body may adjust fluid levels in time.
Below, Dr. Haffejee has listed common health issues faced in Ramadhan, their causes, and their remedies:
CONSTIPATION
Constipation can cause piles (haemorrhoids), fissures (painful cracks
in anal canal) and indigestion with a bloated feeling.
Causes: Too much refined foods, too little water and not enough fibre
in the diet.
Remedy: Avoid excessive refined foods, increase water intake, use bran in baking and brown flour when making flatbread.
INDIGESTION AND WIND
Causes: Over-eating. Too many fried and fatty foods, spicy foods, and
foods that produce wind e.g. eggs, cabbage, lentils. Carbonated drinks like Cola also produce gas.
Remedy: Do not over-eat, drink fruit juices or better still, drink
water. Avoid fried foods, add ajmor to wind-producing foods.
LETHARGY ('low blood pressure')
Excessive sweating, weakness, tiredness, lack of energy, dizziness,
especially on getting up from sitting position, pale appearance and
feeling faint are symptoms associated with "low blood pressure". This
tends to occur towards the afternoon.
Causes: Too little fluid intake, decreased salt intake.
Remedy: Keep cool, increase fluid and salt intake.
Caution: Low blood pressure should be confirmed by taking a blood
pressure reading when symptoms are present. Persons with high blood pressure may need their medication adjusted during Ramadhan. They should consult their doctor.
HEADACHE
Causes: Caffeine and tobacco-withdrawal, doing too much in one day, lack of sleep, and hunger. Usually occur as the day goes by and
worsens at the end of the day. When associated with "low blood
pressure", the headache can be quite severe and can also cause nausea before Iftar.
Remedy: Cut down caffeine and tobacco slowly starting a week or two
before Ramadhan. Herbal and caffeine-free teas may be substituted.
Reorganise your schedule during the Ramadan to have adequate sleep.
LOW BLOOD SUGAR
Weakness, dizziness, tiredness, poor concentration, perspiring easily,
feeling shaky (tremor), unable to perform physical activities,
headache, palpitations are symptoms of low blood sugar.
Causes (in non-diabetics): Having too much sugar i.e. refined
carbohydrates especially at suhoor. The body produces too much insulin causing the blood glucose to drop.
Remedy: Eat something at suhoor and limit sugar-containing foods and drinks.
Caution: Diabetics may need to adjust their medication in Ramadhan.
Consult your doctor.
MUSCLE CRAMPS
Causes: Inadequate intake of calcium, magnesium and potassium foods.
Remedy: Eat foods rich in the above minerals e.g. vegetables, fruit,
dairy products, meat and dates.
Caution: Those on high blood pressure medication and with kidney stone problems should consult their doctor.
PEPTIC ULCERS, HEART BURN, GASTRITIS AND HIATUS HERNIA
Increased acid levels in the empty stomach in Ramadhan aggravate the above conditions. It presents a burning feeling in the stomach area
under the ribs and can extend up to the throat. Spicy foods, coffee,
and Cola drinks worsen these conditions.
Medications are available to control acid levels in the stomach.
People with proven peptic ulcers and hiatus hernia should consult
their doctor well before Ramadhan.
KIDNEY STONES
Kidney stones may occur in people who have less liquids to drink.
Therefore, it is essential to drink extra liquids to prevent stone
formation.
JOINT PAINS
Causes: During Ramadhan, when extra Salah are performed, the pressure on the knee joints increases. In the elderly and those with arthritis, this may result in pain, stiffness, swelling and discomfort.
Remedy: Lose weight so that the knees do not have to carry any extra
load. Exercise the lower limbs before Ramadhan so that they can be
prepared for the additional strain. Being physically fit allows
greater fulfillment, thus enabling one to be able to perform Salah with
ease.
Dr. Farouk Haffejee of the Islamic Medical Association of South Africa
(Durban) has created a list of recommendations for dealing with
Ramadhan in a healthy fashion. They deal with common problems
encountered in Ramadhan.
Dr. Haffejee suggests that in the month of Ramadhan, "our diet should
not differ very much from our normal diet and should be as simple as
possible." He says that our diet should maintain our normal weight,
although he does mention that if one is over-weight,
Ramadhan is a good time to shed some pounds.
He also recommends foods that last longer.
"In view of the long hours of fasting, we should consume slow
digesting foods including fibre containing-foods rather than
fast-digesting foods. Slow digesting foods last up to 8 hours, while
fast-digesting foods last for only 3 to 4 hours," writes Dr. Haffejee.
Slow-digesting foods are foods that contain grains and seeds such as
barley, wheat, oats, semolina, beans, lentils, wholemeal flour, and
unpolished rice. These are called complex carbohydrates.
Fast-burning foods are foods that contain ingredients such as sugar
and white flour. They are called refined carbohydrates.
According to Dr. Haffejee, whole wheat, grains, seeds, vegetables
(like green beans, peas, and spinach), fruit with skin, dried fruit
(such as dried apricots, figs, prunes, and almonds) are all examples
of fibre-containing foods.
Dr. Haffejee says that meals in Ramadhan should be well-balanced, and they should contain foods from each food group, such as fruits,
vegetables, meat/chicken/fish, bread/cereals and dairy products.
He discourages fried foods that some of us are addicted to.
"Fried foods are unhealthy and should be limited. They cause
indigestion, heart-burn, and weight problems," Dr. Haffejee points out.
Below are Dr. Haffejee's recommendations for a Ramadhan diet:
AVOID:
Fried and fatty foods.
Foods containing too much sugar.
Over-eating especially at suhoor.
Too much tea at suhoor: Tea makes you pass more urine taking with it
valuable mineral salts that your body would need during the day.
Smoking cigarettes: If you cannot give up smoking, cut down gradually
starting a few weeks before Ramadhan. Smoking is unhealthy and one should stop completely.
EAT:
Complex carbohydrates at suhoor so that the food lasts longer making
you less hungry.
Dates are excellent source of sugar, fibre, carbohydrates, potassium
and magnesium.
Almonds are rich in protein and fibre with less fat.
Bananas are a good source of potassium, magnesium and carbohydrates.
DRINK:
As much water or fruit juices as possible between iftar and bedtime so that your body may adjust fluid levels in time.
Below, Dr. Haffejee has listed common health issues faced in Ramadhan, their causes, and their remedies:
CONSTIPATION
Constipation can cause piles (haemorrhoids), fissures (painful cracks
in anal canal) and indigestion with a bloated feeling.
Causes: Too much refined foods, too little water and not enough fibre
in the diet.
Remedy: Avoid excessive refined foods, increase water intake, use bran in baking and brown flour when making flatbread.
INDIGESTION AND WIND
Causes: Over-eating. Too many fried and fatty foods, spicy foods, and
foods that produce wind e.g. eggs, cabbage, lentils. Carbonated drinks like Cola also produce gas.
Remedy: Do not over-eat, drink fruit juices or better still, drink
water. Avoid fried foods, add ajmor to wind-producing foods.
LETHARGY ('low blood pressure')
Excessive sweating, weakness, tiredness, lack of energy, dizziness,
especially on getting up from sitting position, pale appearance and
feeling faint are symptoms associated with "low blood pressure". This
tends to occur towards the afternoon.
Causes: Too little fluid intake, decreased salt intake.
Remedy: Keep cool, increase fluid and salt intake.
Caution: Low blood pressure should be confirmed by taking a blood
pressure reading when symptoms are present. Persons with high blood pressure may need their medication adjusted during Ramadhan. They should consult their doctor.
HEADACHE
Causes: Caffeine and tobacco-withdrawal, doing too much in one day, lack of sleep, and hunger. Usually occur as the day goes by and
worsens at the end of the day. When associated with "low blood
pressure", the headache can be quite severe and can also cause nausea before Iftar.
Remedy: Cut down caffeine and tobacco slowly starting a week or two
before Ramadhan. Herbal and caffeine-free teas may be substituted.
Reorganise your schedule during the Ramadan to have adequate sleep.
LOW BLOOD SUGAR
Weakness, dizziness, tiredness, poor concentration, perspiring easily,
feeling shaky (tremor), unable to perform physical activities,
headache, palpitations are symptoms of low blood sugar.
Causes (in non-diabetics): Having too much sugar i.e. refined
carbohydrates especially at suhoor. The body produces too much insulin causing the blood glucose to drop.
Remedy: Eat something at suhoor and limit sugar-containing foods and drinks.
Caution: Diabetics may need to adjust their medication in Ramadhan.
Consult your doctor.
MUSCLE CRAMPS
Causes: Inadequate intake of calcium, magnesium and potassium foods.
Remedy: Eat foods rich in the above minerals e.g. vegetables, fruit,
dairy products, meat and dates.
Caution: Those on high blood pressure medication and with kidney stone problems should consult their doctor.
PEPTIC ULCERS, HEART BURN, GASTRITIS AND HIATUS HERNIA
Increased acid levels in the empty stomach in Ramadhan aggravate the above conditions. It presents a burning feeling in the stomach area
under the ribs and can extend up to the throat. Spicy foods, coffee,
and Cola drinks worsen these conditions.
Medications are available to control acid levels in the stomach.
People with proven peptic ulcers and hiatus hernia should consult
their doctor well before Ramadhan.
KIDNEY STONES
Kidney stones may occur in people who have less liquids to drink.
Therefore, it is essential to drink extra liquids to prevent stone
formation.
JOINT PAINS
Causes: During Ramadhan, when extra Salah are performed, the pressure on the knee joints increases. In the elderly and those with arthritis, this may result in pain, stiffness, swelling and discomfort.
Remedy: Lose weight so that the knees do not have to carry any extra
load. Exercise the lower limbs before Ramadhan so that they can be
prepared for the additional strain. Being physically fit allows
greater fulfillment, thus enabling one to be able to perform Salah with
ease.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Women in Islam
Women in Islam
There is little point in discussing how well or badly so called 'Islamic countries' are living up to the teachings of Islam, or why. First it is necessary to clear up misunderstandings of what those teachings are.
Women are equal to men in the sight of God but they have in some respects different roles in life to men because of their different natures.
They differ psychologically, physiologically, and biologically from men. This makes them more suitable than men for certain responsibilities and less suitable than men for others.
Islam recognizes these differences.
Oppression of women is the result of removing their rights. Islam gives men & women rights that are different in some aspects to those they have in the western world. The principle difference in the way these rights came about is also important.
In the West rights became part of the law only after women had been through great political struggles and also partly due to the necessity of women working in factories during wars. It is possible that this will be reversed in the future.
In Islam, rights were given 'out of the blue' by God through revelation. They cannot be reversed by anyone's decision. Most Muslims recognize the purity and validity of the Qur'anic laws even if they are not following them, but it may be necessary to struggle for a return to them from time to time. It is quite commonly agreed that all things in life which are worthwhile require some struggle.
There is considerable overlap of rights that now exist in the Western world and those which Muslim women have always had (at least in principle if not in practice). This link may give some examples:
In a truly Islamic society women have the following rights in Islam:
• The right and duty to obtain education.
• The right to have their own independent property.
• The right to work to earn money if they need it or want it.
• Equality of reward for equal deeds.
• The right to participate fully in public life and have their voices heard by those in power.
• The right to provisions from the husband for all her needs and more.
• The right to negotiate marriage terms of her choice.
• The right to obtain divorce from her husband, even on the grounds that she simply can't stand him.
• The right to keep all her own money (she is not responsible to for spending on the upkeep of the house or any persons).
• The right to get sexual satisfaction from her husband.
Hijab- The Islamic veil
The Hijab or the Islamic veil is the Muslim women dress code. Muslim women should wear lose clothes that cover the whole of their bodies, except their faces and their hands.
Yet, wearing the Hijab doesn't mean just putting a piece of cloth on your head; it is an attitude, a way of thinking and a behavior. Basically it constitutes an Islamic way of life; it is a statement which indeed should portray a certain attitude.
A Muslim woman should wear a long skirt and a scarf on her head, but if she flirts constantly and is not well mannered, then she can't be really described as wearing the Hijab (Clothes should be long, loose and not see through, after which any style of clothing is applicable). The whole idea involves conducting oneself with dignity at all times. The Hijab depicts a statement, and that is something one should be continually aware of. It identifies the woman as a Muslim (Yet it is not just a symbol).
Curiosity prompts people to question, and it is a good opportunity for a veiled woman to show the non-Muslims the beauty of Islam. A veiled woman may get the stares at times, but it is amazing how many are sincerely interested to learn about veil and about Islam in general. Hijab does not restrict the Muslim woman from doing the kind of things she want to do, it is a blessing because it makes her watch her behavior continuously. Anything (with the blessings of the Almighty, is possible) -studying, working etc. -provided it is within the bounds of Islam (Halal). However, sometimes the decision to wear the Hijab is not very easy for some women, and this could be a result of external pressures, notably family and friends. Unfortunately, some Non-Muslims, or Muslims who don't have good knowledge about Islam, consider wearing the Hijab being too "extreme". But what helps a Muslim woman and actually makes her enjoy wearing the Hijab, is the belief in Allah and the conviction that she's doing this only for the sake of Allah.
Also it is important to ascertain the motive behind wearing the Hijab. For instance a Muslim woman should not wear the Hijab just to please her husband, to impress people at the mosque, or just for the change. Muslim women wear the Hijab following God's commands, purely for the sake of Allah, and they do enjoy the feeling of satisfying God.
Hijab may seem to be merely a woman's issue, but that is not true. Muslim men have to follow a certain dress code too. Muslim men should also wear loose clothes -so no tight fitting jeans for instance, and they should not reveal the part between their bellies and their knees. Also their attitude to all women should always remain respectful and business like, as the women's attitude to men should be.
Allah said in the Qur'an:
"Oh Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters, and wives and daughters of the believers, to extend their outer garments around themselves, so that they would be distinguished and not molested. And God is All-Forgiving, All-Merciful".
The ethics of Islam
Islam has set the basis of the Islamic society and set its code of ethics that grands people a secure, happy and warm life.
The word Islam in itself means peace attained through submission to the Divine will. There is no contradiction between the seeking happiness and the quest for virtue.
The norms that have characterized belief and action in Islam have their initial inspiration in two main sources. One is scriptural, embodying the message revealed by Allah to Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), and recorded in the Qur'an. The second is Prophet Mohammad's life (Sunnah). So a true Muslim can?t take the Qur?an as the only source for Islam and ignore the Sunnah, or take the Sunnah and ignore the Qur?an.
In one of the Surrah?s of the Qur'an entitled al-Furqan ( Surrah no. 25), revelation ? addressed to al humankind ? becomes the point of reference for distinguishing right from wrong:
?Blessed be He Who sent criterion (of right and wring, i.e. this Qur'an) to His servant (Mohammad) that he may be a warner to mankind. He to whom belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth, and who has begotten no son and for Whom there is no partner in the dominion. He has created everything, and has measured it exactly according to its due measurement.? Qur'an (25:1-2).
Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) has been described in the Qur'an as 'a fine example' and one who possess 'high moral excellence', and Allah has urged us to follow his manners,
Allah says in the Qur?an:
?In the Messenger of God (Muhammad) you have a good example to follow for him who hopes for (the Meeting with) God and the Las Day and remembers God much.?
Qur?an (33:21)
Also Allah says:
"...you (O Muhammad) are on an exalted standard of character.? Qur?an (68:4)
The second source of knowledge in Islam is the Hadith (sayings of Prophet Mohammad ?PBUH?, the written record or text of the Sunnah) are to be relied upon on the authority of God's saying in the Qur'an:
?By the star when it goes down. Your companion (Muhammad) is neither astray nor being misled. Nor does he speak from out of (his own) desire. It is no less than Inspiration sent down to him. Qur?an (53:1-4).
The human quality that encompasses the concept of ideal ethical value in the Qur'an is summed up in the term taqwa(fear and respect of Allah). It represents, on one hand, the moral grounding that underlies human action, while on the other, it signifies the ethical conscience which makes human beings aware of their duties both towards Allah and towards their society.
Allah says in the Qur?an:
?O humankind! We have created you out of male and female and constituted you into different groups and societies, so that you may come to know each other ? the noblest of you, the sight of God, are the ones possessing taqwa. God is the All-knowing, the All-Aware?. Qur?an (9.13)
The Qur'an have highlighted the different dimensions of human individual and social life ? the material as well as the spiritual ? but these aspects are not seen in conflictual terms, nor is it assumed that spiritual goals should undermine or exclude material aspects of life.
Moreover Islam has given us certain guidelines to follow for establishing a stable and warm social system. For instance Islam has stated that if some of your family members are resting in their rooms and you wanted to enter, you should ask for permission so you wouldn?t see them in an undesired position. So you should knock three times giving them time before they let you in. Regardless whether this person was one of the unmarriageable or marriageable persons or others, such as your mother, father, daughters or sons.
In the Qur'an Jews and Christians are referred to as 'People of the Book.' While recognizing the particularity and its preeminent status, the Qur'an encourages a wider respect for difference and otherness in human society,
The Qur'an and the life of Prophet Mohammad?s life is inseparably related through all of history as paradigms for manners and ethics. They formed the basis for Muslim personality, subsequently to develop legal tools for embodying moral imperatives. The development of legal sciences led to a codification of norms to the concept of law in Islam, generally referred to as the Shari'a (Allah?s Commands).
Imam Al-Qarafi said in his book "Al-Fourouk": "Know that a little ethics is far better than lot of action." Consequently, Rouwan the pious scholar said to his son: "O son, let your work be as salt and your manners be as flour. It meant an increase in the acquisition of manners until the overall rate is equal to that of flour to salt in the dough. Lots of manners with little of righteous deeds is better than action with lack of ethics".
Along this great Qur?anic manners, there is an alternative to which some people resort when embarrassed by the visit of undesired visitors. Consequently, the host is compelled to inform that he is not present at home, while he is, and so he lies. Also, his children learn from him such an undesired character trait. This conduct may result in enmity and hatred.
The Noble Qur?anic guidance prevents us from falling into this. It allowed the visited person to kindly apologise to his brother and ask his him to accept his apology: Allah says in the Qur?an:
"If you were asked to go back, go back. That makes for greater purity." (Surrah An Nur, verse 28)
Also Islam stated that when entering or leaving your home, you should not slam the door or let it close on its own forcefully. This is in contrary to the gentleness which is the core of the Islamic behaviour. Instead, you should close the door with your hand gently.
Aicha (Prophet Mohammad?s wife) said:
"Whenever gentleness is applied to a matter, it increases its value. Should gentleness be removed away, it discredits it."
This tends to affect our Islamic character, which should be distinguished for its beauty, perfection and features. While our Prophet (PBUH) was with some of his noble companions, he said to them:
"You are coming unto your brothers, dress well, fix up your caravans so you look like a beauty spot* amongst the people. For Allah abhors obscenity or indecency".
The beauty spot, al-khal, is a black dot in the face and originally found on the body. What is meant here is that they should be apparent in their charm, cleanness, nice smell and good appearance. The beauty spot appears in the beautiful face. It adds to its beauty and charm.
Thus a Muslim should be known to be a Muslim, from his nice clothes, his harmonious and simple appearance.
Cybernetics- An Analysis
Farah Binti Ab Rahman
Introduction
Overview
Early age of Cybernetic theory
The Early 20th century
The Fall and Rebirth of Cybernetics
While reading and thinking the proper subject for my Master study, I been realized that the Cybernetics is related more or less in our life, not just in the system itself but it also reflex our value and behavior. Let me introduced what is Cybernetics is all about. It is sound so scientific and doesn’t seem ring a bell to our mind, perhaps it could be something’s to do with the cyber or other universe. Well, Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the concept of complex systems, especially communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory. Sound so full of jargon. Actually what it try to say is that a study of structure that related with process example communication process or any other process that involved with structure.
Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the 1940s.
Other fields of study which have influenced or been influenced by cybernetics include game theory, system theory (a mathematical counterpart to cybernetics), psychology (especially neuropsychology, behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology), philosophy, and architecture.
Overview
Cybernetics terms is originated from the Greek (kybernētēs, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder — the same root as government). Cybernetics is a broad field of study, but the main goal of cybernetics is to understand and define the functions and processes of systems that have goals, and that participate in circular, causal chains that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal to action. Studies of this field are all ultimately means of examining different forms of systems and applying what is known to make the design and function of any system, including artificial systems such as business management, more efficient and effective.
Norbert Wiener
Cybernetics was defined by Norbert Wiener, in his book of that title, as the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. Stafford Beer called it the science of effective organization and Gordon Pask extended it to include information flows "in all media" from stars to brains. It includes the study of feedback, black boxes and derived concepts such as communication and control in living organisms, machines and organizations including self-organization. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) processes information, reacts to information and changes or can be changed to better accomplish the first two tasks. A more philosophical definition, suggested in 1956 by Louis Couffignal, one of the pioneers of cybernetics, characterizes cybernetics as "the art of ensuring the efficacy of action". The most recent definition has been proposed by Louis Kauffman, President of the American Society for Cybernetics, "Cybernetics is the study of systems and processes that interact with themselves and produce themselves from themselves"
Early age of Cybernetic theory
The word cybernetics was first used in the context of "the study of self-governance" by Plato in The Laws to signify the governance of people. The words govern and governor is related to the same Greek root through the Latin cognate’s gubernare and gubernator. The word "cybernétique" was also used in 1834 by the physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) to denote the sciences of government in his classification system of human knowledge.
The Early 20th century
Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the 1940s. Electronic control systems originated with the 1927 work of Bell Telephone Laboratories engineer Harold S. Black on using negative feedback to control amplifiers. The ideas are also related to the biological work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in General Systems Theory.
Early applications of negative feedback in electronic circuits included the control of gun mounts and radar antenna during World War Two. Jay Forrester, a graduate student at the Servomechanisms Laboratory at MIT during WWII working with Gordon S. Brown to develop electronic control systems for the U.S. Navy, later applied these ideas to social organizations such as corporations and cities as an original organizer of the MIT School of Industrial Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Forrester is known as the founder of System Dynamics.
W. Ross Ashby
W. Edwards Deming, the Total Quality Management guru for whom Japan named its top post-WWII industrial prize, was an intern at Bell Telephone Labs in 1927 and may have been influenced by network theory. Deming made "Understanding Systems" one of the four pillars of what he described as "Profound Knowledge" in his book "The New Economics."
Numerous papers spearheaded the coalescing of the field. In 1935 Russian physiologist P.K. Anokhin published a book in which the concept of feedback was studied. The Romanian scientist Stefan Odobleja published Psychologie consonantiste (Paris, 1938), describing many cybernetic principles. The study and mathematical modelling of regulatory processes became a continuing research effort and two key articles were published in 1943. These papers were "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology" by Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow; and the paper "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts.
Cybernetics as a discipline was firmly established by Wiener, McCulloch and others, such as W. Ross Ashby and W. Grey Walter.
Walter was one of the first to build autonomous robots as an aid to the study of animal behaviour. Together with the US and UK, an important geographical locus of early cybernetics was France.
In the spring of 1947, Wiener was invited to a congress on harmonic analysis, held in Nancy, France. The event was organized by the Bourbaki, a French scientific society, and mathematician Szolem Mandelbrojt (1899-1983), uncle of the world-famous mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot.
John von Neumann
During this stay in France, Wiener received the offer to write a manuscript on the unifying character of this part of applied mathematics, which is found in the study of Brownian motion and in telecommunication engineering. The following summer, back in the United States, Wiener decided to introduce the neologism cybernetics into his scientific theory. The name cybernetics was coined to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms" and was popularized through his book Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine (Hermann & Cie, Paris, 1948). In the UK this became the focus for the Ratio Club.
In the early 1940's John von Neumann, although better known for his work in mathematics and computer science, did contribute a unique and unusual addition to the world of cybernetics: Von Neumann cellular automata, and their logical follow up the Von Neumann Universal Constructor. The result of these deceptively simple thought-experiments was the concept of self replication which cybernetics adopted as a core concept. The concept that the same properties of genetic reproduction applied to social memes, living cells, and even computer viruses is further proof of the somewhat surprising universality of cybernetic study.
Wiener popularized the social implications of cybernetics, drawing analogies between automatic systems (such as a regulated steam engine) and human institutions in his best-selling The Human Use of Human Beings : Cybernetics and Society (Houghton-Mifflin, 1950).
While not the only instance of a research organization focused on cybernetics, the Biological Computer Lab at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, under the direction of Heinz von Foerster, was a major center of cybernetic research for almost 20 years, beginning in 1958.
The Fall and Rebirth of Cybernetics
For a time during the past 30 years, the field of cybernetics followed a boom-bust cycle of becoming more and more dominated by the subfields of artificial intelligence and machine-biological interfaces and when this research fell out of favor, the field as a whole fell from grace.
In the 1970s new cybernetics has emerged in multiple fields, first in biology. Some biologists influenced by cybernetic concepts (Maturana and Varela, 1980); Varela, 1979; Atlan, 1979) realized that the cybernetic metaphors of the program upon which molecular biology had been based rendered a conception of the autonomy of the living being impossible. Consequently, these thinkers were led to invent a new cybernetics, one more suited to the organizations which mankind discovers in nature - organizations he has not himself invented. The possibility that this new cybernetics could also account for social forms of organization, remained an object of debate among theoreticians on self-organization in the 1980s.
In political science, Project Cybersyn attempted to introduce a cybernetically controlled economy during the early 1970s. In the 1980s, unlike its predecessor, the new cybernetics concerns itself with the interaction of autonomous political actors and subgroups, and the practical and reflexive consciousness of the subjects who produce and reproduce the structure of a political community.
Geyer and van der Zouwen in 1978 discussed a number of characteristics of the emerging "new cybernetics".
One characteristic of new cybernetics is that it views information as constructed and reconstructed by an individual interacting with the environment. This provides an epistemological foundation of science, by viewing it as observer-dependent. Another characteristic of the new cybernetics is its contribution towards bridging the "micro-macro gap". That is, it links the individual with the society. Geyer and van der Zouwen also noted that a transition from classical cybernetics to the new cybernetics involves a transition from classical problems to new problems. These shifts in thinking involve, among others, a change from emphasis on the system being steered to the system doing the steering, and the factor which guides the steering decisions. And a new emphasis on communication between several systems which are trying to steer each other.
Cybernetics is the best formula to begin our life, it can be implies to student, senior citizen, professionals worker and many others’, why it is so, reason that we need to assemble our life with proper scheduling as our Prophet S.A.W said “ tomorrow must be better than today” . As I mention in the first paragraph Cybernetics is not a scientific formula, but it is more on how to reaching certain goals that can give impact directly or indirectly in the long run. In future, Cybernetics can be more focus on the human development as what happen in 1970s, well history can be happen again.
References:
Ashby, W. Ross, Design for a Brain. London: Chapman and Hall, 1960.
Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Technology Press; New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948.
http://www.pangaro.com/published/cyb-and-con.html
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About myself, I am currently working as researcher at Oil and gas Consultant Company in Malaysia, actively involve in Human Development and Islamic studies, also I am part time student in IIUM (International Islamic University, Malaysia).
Farah Binti Ab Rahman
Introduction
Overview
Early age of Cybernetic theory
The Early 20th century
The Fall and Rebirth of Cybernetics
While reading and thinking the proper subject for my Master study, I been realized that the Cybernetics is related more or less in our life, not just in the system itself but it also reflex our value and behavior. Let me introduced what is Cybernetics is all about. It is sound so scientific and doesn’t seem ring a bell to our mind, perhaps it could be something’s to do with the cyber or other universe. Well, Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the concept of complex systems, especially communication processes, control mechanisms and feedback principles. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory. Sound so full of jargon. Actually what it try to say is that a study of structure that related with process example communication process or any other process that involved with structure.
Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the 1940s.
Other fields of study which have influenced or been influenced by cybernetics include game theory, system theory (a mathematical counterpart to cybernetics), psychology (especially neuropsychology, behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology), philosophy, and architecture.
Overview
Cybernetics terms is originated from the Greek (kybernētēs, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder — the same root as government). Cybernetics is a broad field of study, but the main goal of cybernetics is to understand and define the functions and processes of systems that have goals, and that participate in circular, causal chains that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal to action. Studies of this field are all ultimately means of examining different forms of systems and applying what is known to make the design and function of any system, including artificial systems such as business management, more efficient and effective.
Norbert Wiener
Cybernetics was defined by Norbert Wiener, in his book of that title, as the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. Stafford Beer called it the science of effective organization and Gordon Pask extended it to include information flows "in all media" from stars to brains. It includes the study of feedback, black boxes and derived concepts such as communication and control in living organisms, machines and organizations including self-organization. Its focus is how anything (digital, mechanical or biological) processes information, reacts to information and changes or can be changed to better accomplish the first two tasks. A more philosophical definition, suggested in 1956 by Louis Couffignal, one of the pioneers of cybernetics, characterizes cybernetics as "the art of ensuring the efficacy of action". The most recent definition has been proposed by Louis Kauffman, President of the American Society for Cybernetics, "Cybernetics is the study of systems and processes that interact with themselves and produce themselves from themselves"
Early age of Cybernetic theory
The word cybernetics was first used in the context of "the study of self-governance" by Plato in The Laws to signify the governance of people. The words govern and governor is related to the same Greek root through the Latin cognate’s gubernare and gubernator. The word "cybernétique" was also used in 1834 by the physicist André-Marie Ampère (1775–1836) to denote the sciences of government in his classification system of human knowledge.
The Early 20th century
Contemporary cybernetics began as an interdisciplinary study connecting the fields of control systems, electrical network theory, mechanical engineering, logic modeling, evolutionary biology and neuroscience in the 1940s. Electronic control systems originated with the 1927 work of Bell Telephone Laboratories engineer Harold S. Black on using negative feedback to control amplifiers. The ideas are also related to the biological work of Ludwig von Bertalanffy in General Systems Theory.
Early applications of negative feedback in electronic circuits included the control of gun mounts and radar antenna during World War Two. Jay Forrester, a graduate student at the Servomechanisms Laboratory at MIT during WWII working with Gordon S. Brown to develop electronic control systems for the U.S. Navy, later applied these ideas to social organizations such as corporations and cities as an original organizer of the MIT School of Industrial Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Forrester is known as the founder of System Dynamics.
W. Ross Ashby
W. Edwards Deming, the Total Quality Management guru for whom Japan named its top post-WWII industrial prize, was an intern at Bell Telephone Labs in 1927 and may have been influenced by network theory. Deming made "Understanding Systems" one of the four pillars of what he described as "Profound Knowledge" in his book "The New Economics."
Numerous papers spearheaded the coalescing of the field. In 1935 Russian physiologist P.K. Anokhin published a book in which the concept of feedback was studied. The Romanian scientist Stefan Odobleja published Psychologie consonantiste (Paris, 1938), describing many cybernetic principles. The study and mathematical modelling of regulatory processes became a continuing research effort and two key articles were published in 1943. These papers were "Behavior, Purpose and Teleology" by Arturo Rosenblueth, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow; and the paper "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity" by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts.
Cybernetics as a discipline was firmly established by Wiener, McCulloch and others, such as W. Ross Ashby and W. Grey Walter.
Walter was one of the first to build autonomous robots as an aid to the study of animal behaviour. Together with the US and UK, an important geographical locus of early cybernetics was France.
In the spring of 1947, Wiener was invited to a congress on harmonic analysis, held in Nancy, France. The event was organized by the Bourbaki, a French scientific society, and mathematician Szolem Mandelbrojt (1899-1983), uncle of the world-famous mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot.
John von Neumann
During this stay in France, Wiener received the offer to write a manuscript on the unifying character of this part of applied mathematics, which is found in the study of Brownian motion and in telecommunication engineering. The following summer, back in the United States, Wiener decided to introduce the neologism cybernetics into his scientific theory. The name cybernetics was coined to denote the study of "teleological mechanisms" and was popularized through his book Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and Machine (Hermann & Cie, Paris, 1948). In the UK this became the focus for the Ratio Club.
In the early 1940's John von Neumann, although better known for his work in mathematics and computer science, did contribute a unique and unusual addition to the world of cybernetics: Von Neumann cellular automata, and their logical follow up the Von Neumann Universal Constructor. The result of these deceptively simple thought-experiments was the concept of self replication which cybernetics adopted as a core concept. The concept that the same properties of genetic reproduction applied to social memes, living cells, and even computer viruses is further proof of the somewhat surprising universality of cybernetic study.
Wiener popularized the social implications of cybernetics, drawing analogies between automatic systems (such as a regulated steam engine) and human institutions in his best-selling The Human Use of Human Beings : Cybernetics and Society (Houghton-Mifflin, 1950).
While not the only instance of a research organization focused on cybernetics, the Biological Computer Lab at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign, under the direction of Heinz von Foerster, was a major center of cybernetic research for almost 20 years, beginning in 1958.
The Fall and Rebirth of Cybernetics
For a time during the past 30 years, the field of cybernetics followed a boom-bust cycle of becoming more and more dominated by the subfields of artificial intelligence and machine-biological interfaces and when this research fell out of favor, the field as a whole fell from grace.
In the 1970s new cybernetics has emerged in multiple fields, first in biology. Some biologists influenced by cybernetic concepts (Maturana and Varela, 1980); Varela, 1979; Atlan, 1979) realized that the cybernetic metaphors of the program upon which molecular biology had been based rendered a conception of the autonomy of the living being impossible. Consequently, these thinkers were led to invent a new cybernetics, one more suited to the organizations which mankind discovers in nature - organizations he has not himself invented. The possibility that this new cybernetics could also account for social forms of organization, remained an object of debate among theoreticians on self-organization in the 1980s.
In political science, Project Cybersyn attempted to introduce a cybernetically controlled economy during the early 1970s. In the 1980s, unlike its predecessor, the new cybernetics concerns itself with the interaction of autonomous political actors and subgroups, and the practical and reflexive consciousness of the subjects who produce and reproduce the structure of a political community.
Geyer and van der Zouwen in 1978 discussed a number of characteristics of the emerging "new cybernetics".
One characteristic of new cybernetics is that it views information as constructed and reconstructed by an individual interacting with the environment. This provides an epistemological foundation of science, by viewing it as observer-dependent. Another characteristic of the new cybernetics is its contribution towards bridging the "micro-macro gap". That is, it links the individual with the society. Geyer and van der Zouwen also noted that a transition from classical cybernetics to the new cybernetics involves a transition from classical problems to new problems. These shifts in thinking involve, among others, a change from emphasis on the system being steered to the system doing the steering, and the factor which guides the steering decisions. And a new emphasis on communication between several systems which are trying to steer each other.
Cybernetics is the best formula to begin our life, it can be implies to student, senior citizen, professionals worker and many others’, why it is so, reason that we need to assemble our life with proper scheduling as our Prophet S.A.W said “ tomorrow must be better than today” . As I mention in the first paragraph Cybernetics is not a scientific formula, but it is more on how to reaching certain goals that can give impact directly or indirectly in the long run. In future, Cybernetics can be more focus on the human development as what happen in 1970s, well history can be happen again.
References:
Ashby, W. Ross, Design for a Brain. London: Chapman and Hall, 1960.
Wiener, Norbert, Cybernetics, or control and communication in the animal and the machine. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Technology Press; New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1948.
http://www.pangaro.com/published/cyb-and-con.html
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About myself, I am currently working as researcher at Oil and gas Consultant Company in Malaysia, actively involve in Human Development and Islamic studies, also I am part time student in IIUM (International Islamic University, Malaysia).
Isamesis and Salam
Today on 30 August 2008, I finally create my own blog after awhile....it been a busy day for us. Now Ramadhan is coming...InsyaAllah we hoping that this month we get as much barakah from it. I am starting with the intresting article that been working for my research.
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