Corporate governance in Islamic financial institutions

The most recent and severe financial crisis followed by the failure of the most important financial players in the world economy has raised doubts about the way the government system works. This has been crucial to understanding the significance of good corporate governance practices, able to sustain the current blockage in the most vital financial negotiations. Therefore, interest in corporate governance has grown and attracted considerable attention in both developed and less-developed countries (Mallin, 2004; Solomon & Solomon, 2004; Sternberg, 2004). Hence, the study is based on a theoretical approach, and confronts the traditional and Islamic corporate governance, analyzing the essential differences that have highlighted the necessity of finding an alternative model to the traditional one. Comparing the two models of corporate governance, in their authentic form, it easily gives rise to discrepancies. The most important divergence between the two models derived from the fact that in the Islamic model the corporate governance practice is based on the religious principles and God and Islam are the main participants in it. This is in contrast to the conventional philosophy that focuses on the material aspects and the main objective is to create and increase shareholders’ value throughout the time.

Markov chain modulated Poisson process to stimulate the number of blockages in sewer networks

Blockage failure is the most common type of operational failure in sewer networks that can cause loss of service and flooding, which can result in environmental pollution, health risks, property damage, and traffic disruption. There are currently very few blockage prediction models that are either deterministic in nature or depend only on static factors in predicting blockages. This study aims to overcome these drawbacks in the current blockage prediction models and proposes a methodology that aims to predict the expected number of blockages in sewer networks as a function of pipe conditions (dynamic variable) and pipe physical attributes (static variables) using a Markov chain modulated Poisson process modeling framework. The framework is applied to case study sewer network in the city of Sahab, Jordan, that contains information about the pipes’ physical attributes and their current condition. Bayesian analysis is then performed to evaluate the proposed framework.

Electrical Sensing and Discrimination of Different States of Myoglobin Through Solid-State Nanopore

Proteins are structurally dynamic macromolecules that exist in various conformations of similar energies. The function of protein usually depends upon its structural formation which is often induced by ligand binding. These conformational changes are of great interest in proteomics and biochemistry. In this work, we extended our knowledge to effectively detect structural perturbations of Mb (Myoglobin) in the presence of OA (Oleic acid) by using a ∼20 nm (diameter) silicon-nitride (Si3N4) nanopore. This interaction can be either specific or non-specific depending upon the concentration of OA in Mb solution. Results of nanopore relied on the succession of current blockages as characterized by their duration, amplitude and event's number. In order to detect the interaction, three kinds of experiments were performed under three different OA/Mb ratios and various event readouts were obtained. First of all, we took the volume ratio of OA/Mb as 4:1 and found that values of dwell time (td ) and current blockage (ΔIb ) were similar to Mb (only) translocation. Secondly, giving an increment in the volume ratio of OA/Mb to 10:1 resulted in a significant increase in dwell time (td ) and current blockage (ΔIb ) level. Furthermore, a dramatic decrease in amplitude of ionic current blockage (ΔIb ) and dwell time (td ) was observed at the ratio 20:1 of OA/Mb which indicated that OA/Mb interaction can cause structural instability of myoglobin. This may also disturb charge distributions on amino acid residues which results in variation of above-mentioned parameters. This approach of nanopore sensing can be extensively employed in screening FABPs (Fatty acid binding proteins) and protein conformational studies.

Wind loads on open truss structures: applications of blockage to historic transporter bridges

The overall aim of this study is to compare and contrast the design of the two remaining working examples of early twentieth-century transporter bridges in the UK, namely, those at Newport and Middlesbrough. With the aid of modern finite-element analysis, the behaviour of the structures under loading is investigated, likely modes of failure determined and the efficiency of each structure evaluated. The important horizontal load component due to wind at the exposed locations of the bridges is examined using ‘current blockage’, ideas transferred from recent work on wave–current–structure interaction for space-frame structures in offshore engineering. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Environmental loading of heritage structures’.