Western Parameters of Freedom of Expression: A Critique from Islamic Perspective

This study explores Western parameters and principles of freedom of expression from an Islamic perspective. Western thought advocates infinite freedom of speech but it also has some regulations, limits and restraints. Every Western human rights instrument and convention guarantee freedom of expression, but in fact, the excess of freedom is bringing the society to a harsh kind of clash and conflict. In simple words, freedom without sufficient legal and moral restrictions cannot be managed. It is also observed that without strict legal and moral boundaries, it cannot become fruitful for the state and society. Even the Western world, which is representative of maximum freedom of speech, also bounds freedom of expression with some parameters and restrictions. However, it is propagated that the Western laws provide outclass freedom of expression and speech. The actual situation is not as good as it is expressed, because on one hand, the international instruments provide freedom of speech and on the other, they limit it through certain laws. It means freedom of expression is not free of boundaries in the West also. In other words, it is only a mythology and controlled propaganda that the Western thought and civilization provides absolute and unlimited freedom of expression and press in their countries. Instead, Islamic teachings categorically agree to provide the right to freedom of expression but on the other hand, it binds them with some social, moral and legal boundaries to save the society from any kind of clash and conflict. It is perceived Western legal instruments limit freedom of expression with some legal boundaries and laws rather than ethics and morals. It is recommended on behalf of this study that the Western world also puts moral and religious boundaries on freedom of expression for its safety. An analytical & critical approach with qualitative research methodology is adopted in the study.

Selection of Web Services by Using Diversified Service Rank

Traditional techniques for web service discovery and selection mostly rely on string matching and/or semantic logic-based matching. They are generally developed on service description and functional attributes which are exposed in service advertisement. The selection is made from the result output which is typically presented in order of their ranks primarily based on degree of match of functional or operational parameters. The Quality of Service (QoS) attributes such as service performance, execution duration, reliability, reputation, popularity, security, access rights, availability, success rate, price etc and user preferences are often ignored in the query. Moreover, it is very difficult for the requester or any software agent to select the best service out of many potential candidates from the search result. This paper proposes a framework that takes into account QoS attributes along with user preferences and devise an algorithm namely Diversified Service Rank (DSR) that re-ranks top k web services in the search result, this helps service requesters in prompt selection and composition of web services.