The Impact of firms\u27 compliance to shariah on stock price synchronicity

The continuous growth in Islamic finance over the past decades grabbed the interest of empirical researchers who investigated different aspects of Shariah compliant firms. In this thesis, we are interested to explore the impact of Shariah compliance on stock price synchronicity and informativeness. Our rational is that Shariah standard forced compliant firms to release more firm-specific information compared with conventional ones and given that Shariah compliant firms are more associated with information transparency taking into consideration the impact of the Shariah on the governance of the compliant firms. We claim that these features of Shariah compliant firms lead to less price synchronicity compared with conventional firms. We use data from 11 emerging and developed countries for the period of 2000 to 2018. Our findings suggest that firms\u27 compliance to Shariah has a significant negative impact on stock price synchronicity confirming that Shariah compliance decreases the co-movements of the stocks. The results are consistent with the unique characteristics and the financial ratio constrains of compliant firms increase the information transparency and accuracy

Factors which influence student satisfaction among international postgraduate students in Universiti Utara Malaysia

In today’s competitive environment student satisfaction become a significant factor for higher education. This was because satisfied students could attract new students and help to retain existing students. Despite importance of student satisfaction in higher education institutions, limited studies have been done on student satisfaction in Malaysian higher education. The declining number of international postgraduate students in UUM had raised researcher interest to make the study. The objective of this study was to examine the influence of some factors like accommodation, cafeteria food service, transportation and teaching quality on student satisfaction among international postgraduate students in Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). The survey method utilizes the questionnaire for data collection process. Pearson Correlation and Multiple Regression were used for data analysis through SPSS version The survey questionnaires were distributed to 291 respondents however only 192 questionnaires were received back or 65.9 percent. The main finding of study showed there were significant relationships between accommodation, cafeteria food service, teaching quality and student satisfaction. Transportation, however, did not show any significant relationship with student satisfactio

ASSOCIATION OF MOLECULAR STRUCTURE SPECTRAL FEATURES WITH NUTRIENT PROFILES AND AVAILABILITY AND MILK PRODUCTION PERFORMANCE OF NEWLY DEVELOPED BLEND-PELLETED PRODUCTS IN HIGH PRODUCING DAIRY COWS

The main objectives of this study were to: (1) study the association between the molecular structural features related to the amide region and protein utilization of blend-pelleted products based on canola meal or carinata meal, and (2) evaluate the effects of feeding newly developed blend-pelleted products based on carinata meal or canola meal on production efficiency, ruminal fermentation characteristics, ruminal degradability, and intestinal digestion in high-producing dairy cows. Result from the first study showed that the moleclar structural related to amide region were detected using fourier transform infrared (FTIR) vibration spectroscopy in which, increasing the level of canola or carinata meal in the blend-pelleted products (BPPs) significantly increased (P 0.10) of dietary treatments on milk yield, milk composition, and milk components yield. All dietary treatments exhibited the same income over feed cost (P > 0.10). The total-tract digestibility of nutrients and nitrogen balance were not (P > 0.10) affected by treatments. Third study was carried out to assess the effect of the dietary treatments on ruminal fermentation and ruminal digestion in dairy cows. The control diet exhibited a higher rumen total volatile fatty acid concentration (P 0.10) of treatments on ruminal ammonia concentration. Furthermore, all diets exhibited the same (P > 0.10) ruminal degradation kinetics, intestinal digestion of nutrients, and metabolizable protein supply in dairy cows. In conclusion, the blend-pelleted products based on new co-product (carinata meal) from bio-fuel processing industry is similar to the other pelleted products based on canola meal without affecting the production efficiency or the ruminal fermentation features in dairy cows. Molecular spectroscopy can be used to determine the inherent structural characteristics in relation to protein profile, energy values, protein digestion (rumen and intestine), and the metabolizable protein supply in the blend-pelleted products based on different bio-energy co-products

A Process for Providing Environmentally Conscious Housing in the UAE

Housing has become a core theme in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Recent reports have marked a shortfall in the required supply of middle-income housing, thus suggesting significant efforts to address the current imbalance. It is believed that several reasons have contributed to the current shortage of affordable housing, including the low adoption of prefabricated construction techniques resulting in higher construction costs, as well as lower financial returns; therefore, making such developments less attractive for developers. However, there are several projects that have proven to be successful in utilizing precast concrete towards practical and economical value, in addition to providing a viable solution to meet the expectations for efficient housing delivery with regard to quantity and quality. In this research, we propose a comprehensive process that combines a design and production model to enhance the actual practices and mechanisms of the precast concrete development. This paper proposes various stages of logic design implemented in an architectural process with the aim of reaching the highest level of sustainability in UAE housing while reducing the cost of construction, and the time of delivery

Effects of Poly Vinyl Acetate on Characteristics of Expansive Soil

Soil stabilization using polymer materials has become of great potential in recent years. In this regard, an attempt is made to investigate and understand the influence of Poly Vinyl Acetate (PVA) on the engineering properties of expansive soil. A series of treated soil specimens were prepared and tested at four different percentages of PVA (0%, 1.5%, 3.75%, and 5% by weight of dry soil). These treated specimens were subjected to laboratory testing for measuring Atterberg's limits, free swell, compaction characteristics, and unconfined compression strength properties. It was found that PVA had significant influence on the properties of treated soil. An increase in PVA content resulted in an increment of unconfined compressive strength of the soil. Addition of 3.75% of PVA increased the unconfined compressive strength value almost 6 times the value of the virgin soil. On the other hand, an increase in PVA content led to a reduction of free swell and plasticity index. The soil plasticity and free swell indices values were reduced from 62% to 0% and from 190% to 50% respectively by addition of 5% PVA. It can be concluded that an increasing trend for soil strength and decreasing in swelling with addition of PVA, suggesting its potential applications in stabilization of expansive soils

XACML Extension for Graphs: Flexible Authorization Policy Specification and Datastore-independent Enforcement

The increasing use of graph-structured data for business- and privacy-critical applications requires sophisticated, flexible and fine-grained authorization and access control. Currently, role-based access control is supported in graph databases, where access to objects is restricted via roles. This does not take special properties of graphs into account such as vertices and edges along the path between a given subject and resource. In previous iterations of our research, we started to design an authorization policy language and access control model, which considers the specification of graph paths and enforces them in the multi-model database ArangoDB. Since this approach is promising to consider graph characteristics in data protection, we improve the language in this work to provide flexible path definitions and specifying edges as protected resources. Furthermore, we introduce a method for a datastore-independent policy enforcement. Besides discussing the latest work in our XACML4G model, which is an extension to the Extensible Access Control Markup Language (XACML), we demonstrate our prototypical implementation with a real case and give an outlook on performance.Comment: Extended version of an accepted paper at the 20th International Conference on Security and Cryptography (SECRYPT), 202

Enhanced Water Electrolysis: Effect Of Temperature On The Oxygen Evolution Reaction At Cobalt Oxide Nanoparticles Modified Glassy Carbon Electrodes

Water splitting producing hydrogen and oxygen gases appears promising in view of the increasing need of renewable energy sources and storage strategies. Investigation of stable and highly efficient electrocatalysts for oxygen evolution reaction (OER) is targeted in this study at cobalt oxide nanoparticle modified glassy carbon (nano-CoOx/GC) electrodes. The effect of the preparation (Tp) and measuring temperature (Tm) on the electrocatalytic activity of nano-CoOx/GC towards the OER is investigated under various operating conditions. Linear sweep voltammetry (LSV), cyclic voltammetry (CV) as well as SEM and XRD techniques were used to probe the electrocatalytic and morphological characteristics of nano-CoOx prepared under various conditions. Increasing Tp and/or Tm results in improving the kinetics and electrocatalytic activity of the proposed anodes towards the OER as demonstrated in the value of the onset potential of the OER and the OER currents recorded at a fixed potential. The morphology as well as the surface characterization of the prepared catalyst are reported herein and evaluated