Crone

Abstract: Fractional-order differentiation offers new degrees of freedom that simplify the design of high-performance dynamic controllers. The CRONE control system design (CSD) methodology proposes the design of robust controllers by using fractional-order operators. A software toolbox has been developed based on this methodology and is freely available for the international scientific and industrial communities. This paper presents both the CRONE CSD methodology and its implementation using the toolbox. The design of two robust controllers for irrigation canals shows how to use the toolbox.

Abstract: God's Rule: Government and Islam, by Patricia Crone. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004. x + 400 pages. Charts to p. 413. Bibl. to p. 446. Index and gloss, to p. 462. $39.50. For many Muslim believers, it is an article of faith that religion and politics are fused. Patricia Crone accepts this doctrine and begins her new book by firmly grounding Islam in a Middle Eastern tradition of religious and political unity. The two examples she uses as evidence are the Sumerian city-states with their priest-rulers and "the federation of Israelites that Moses took out of Egypt for the conquest of Palestine" (p. 15). These examples are perhaps not the best choices since archaeologists have discovered military strongmen as well as priests among the earliest rulers in Sumeria. They also tell us of early popular assemblies (pukhrum), indicating that Iraq (!) and not Greece was the place displaying the earliest traces of participatory politics.1 As for the Israelites, many archaeologists are skeptical of the historicity of the Exodus and are inclined to regard the ancient Israelites as villagers of long standing in the Palestinian hills.2 In the case of Islamic origins as well, the scholarship of the past quarter century - in which Dr. Crone occupies a prominent position has cast doubts on the historicity of early 7lh-century events in Arabia as told by the 9lh-century religious scholars. While Islamic theology and law may posit a unity of religion and politics, historical research demonstrates their distinctiveness - more often in tension than in harmony. Apart from the initial fusion argument, the book is a masterpiece on the history of the tension existing between religion and politics during the formative period of Islamic civilization (7'h to 13th centuries C.E.). It begins with a discussion of the Umayyad caliphs, governors, and judges who ruled the expanding Islamic Empire in the early 70Os by religious as well as political decree. From the start, however, these rulers had to deal with critics, such as the Kharijis, Jama'i Muslims, and Shi'is, who advocated rival models of religio-political organization under either weaker or stronger caliphs. Crone coins the felicitous term jama'i (p. 28) to describe those early "communitarian" (later Sunni) Muslims who were critical of Umayyad religious functions but did not seek to overturn Umayyad rule. While admittedly the Kharijis and Shi'is espoused religio-political fusion, the very fact of their active hostility shows the unavoidable tensions between religion and politics in the historical process. Crone convincingly argues that Shi'ism in the mid-700s was still more generally Hashimite (family of the Prophet) than 'Alid (family of the Prophet's cousin 'AH) in orientation. Consequently, the 'Abbasid revolution of 750 appears as a victory for the Shi'i model of a strong caliphate, especially in religious matters. …