LEGAL TRANSPLANTS IN THE SAUDI ARABIAN BANKING SYSTEM: THE EFFECTS OF WESTERN LAWS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SAUDI ARABIAN MONETARY AGENCY

This thesis examines the principal legal transplants that established the central banking system in Saudi Arabia, beginning in 1952 with the founding of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), which involved transplanting banking and fiscal rules from the Common Law jurisdiction of the USA into a nation whose constitution is the Qur’an. Other significant developments are the Banking Control Law 1966 and the establishment of trade courts on the established Egyptian model, which was originally transplanted from the Civil legal roots of France. The contribution of legal transplants in the establishment of Saudi Arabia as an internationally recognised financial centre is examined through theoretical perspectives, starting with Alan Watson’s seminal 1974 work, extended rather than radically amended by later contributors to legal transplant theory. This study uses the PESTLE framework to analyse the functioning of legal transplants and their harmony with Islam in the evolution of the banking sectors of Saudi Arabia and other Islamic states. Malaysia and Turkey are noted as having successfully adopted Western banking institutions and their regulation, whereas Pakistan’s experience is assessed as a failure. The success of transplants in Malaysia, Turkey, and many Gulf neighbours of Saudi Arabia is ascribed to what Örücü calls ‘legal tuning’ and Teubner labels ‘autopoiesis’. Conversely, Pakistan’s retention of selective Islamic principles is seen to have created schisms when Western banking was introduced. In essence, the analysis suggests that for a legal transplant to become established and grow, it must be nurtured in its new conditions. Thus, transplanting Western laws into Islamic society requires conditions of harmonisation and support, rather than impediments to its operation. Transplants succeed if they act as ‘legal irritants’ and have the support of the legal elite. Recommendations for the future of legal transplantation in the Saudi banking sector are made in light of this analysis

Utilization of Avatar-based Technology in The Area of Sign language... A Review

Information and communication technology (ICT) has progressed rapidly in recent years, and it is becoming necessary for everybody including deafpeople. This paper gives an overview of using a technology called Avatar-based technology in the area of sign language, which is the normal language of the deafworldwide, although it is different from country to another. This paper covers the basic concepts related to the signing avatar and the efforts for applying it indifferent sign language worldwide, especially Arabic Sign Language (ArSL)

Blocking anaplerotic entry of glutamine to TCA cycle sensitizes K-Ras mutant cancer cells to cytotoxic drugs

Cancer cells undergo a metabolic transformation that allows for increased anabolic demands wherein glycolytic and TCA cycle intermediates are shunted away for the synthesis of biological molecules required for cell growth and division. One of the key shunts is the exit of citrate from the mitochondria and the TCA cycle for the generation of cytosolic acetyl-CoA that can be used for fatty acid and cholesterol biosynthesis. With the loss of mitochondrial citrate, cancer cells rely on the “conditionally essential” amino acid glutamine (Q) as an anaplerotic carbon source for TCA cycle intermediates. While Q deprivation causes G1 cell cycle arrest in non-transformed cells, its impact on the cancer cell cycle is not well characterized. We report here a correlation between bypass of the Q-dependent G1 checkpoint and cancer cells harboring K-Ras mutations. Instead of arresting in G1 in response to Q-deprivation, K-Ras driven cancer cells arrest in either S- or G2/M-phase. Inhibition of K-Ras effector pathways was able to revert cells to G1 arrest upon Q deprivation. Blocking anaplerotic utilization of Q mimicked Q deprivation – causing S- and G2/M-phase arrest in K-Ras mutant cancer cells. Significantly, Q deprivation or suppression of anaplerotic Q utilization created synthetic lethality to the cell cycle phase-specific cytotoxic drugs, capecitabine and paclitaxel. These data suggest that disabling of the G1 Q checkpoint could represent a novel vulnerability of cancer cells harboring K-Ras and possibly other mutations that disable the Q-dependent checkpoint

COVID-19 knowledge and perception among healthcare professionals in two Arabian Gulf countries

Introduction: The WHO announced on 30 January 2020 the respiratory tract infection outbreak caused by Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) that was first recognized in China to be a global public health emergency. Objective: To investigate healthcare professional's knowledge and awareness about COVID-19. Methods: The study was conducted across four hospitals in Saudi Arabia and two hospitals in Kuwait. The questionnaire was completed between 18th May and the end of June 2020. Results: A total of 460 healthcare professionals completed the questionnaire, 37.8%(n=174) were males. The age of the participants ranged from 18 to 64 and 80.4% (n=370) of the participants were aged 34 or below. Official government websites 54.8% (n=252) and social media 43.3% (n=199) were the major reliable information sources related to COVID-19. only 37% (n=170) mentioned that the coronavirus disease could transmit through contact. In addition, only 42% (n=191) of the study participants had the correct knowledge about the incubation period of the disease. Moreover, 43.5% (n=200) of the participants were able to identify the symptoms of COVID-19. Conclusion: The study recommended the need to focus more on educational and awareness programs targeting all healthcare professionals to ensure the best practice and provide the optimal care

Effect of Au Precursor and Support on the Catalytic Activity of the Nano-Au-Catalysts for Propane Complete Oxidation

Catalytic activity of nano-Au-catalyst(s) for the complete propane oxidation was investigated. The results showed that the nature of both Au precursor and support strongly influences catalytic activity of the Au-catalyst(s) for the propane oxidation. Oxidation state, size, and dispersion of Au nanoparticles in the Au-catalysts, surface area, crystallinity, phase structure, and redox property of the support are the key aspects for the complete propane oxidation. Among the studied Au-catalysts, the AuHAuCl4-Ce catalyst is found to be the most active catalyst

On similarities in infrared spectra of complex drugs

A chromatographic separation of active ingredients of Combivir, Epivir, Kaletra, Norvir, Prezista, Retrovir, Trivizir, Valcyte, and Viramune is performed on thin layer chromatography. The spectra of these nine drugs were recorded using the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. This information is then analyzed by means of the cosine correlation. The comparison of the infrared spectra in the perspective of the adopted similarity measure is possible to visualize with present day computer tools, and the emerging clusters provide additional information about the similarities of the investigated set of complex drugs

Spectral analysis of HIV drugs for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome within modified non-invasive methods

In this study a chromatographic separation of active ingredients for four drugs namely Combivir, Kaletra, Valcyte and Viramune was performed on thin layer chromatography (TLC). Their spectra were analyzed for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome by using the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy spectra combined with the new procedure of the optimal linear smoothing. Fourier transform of the second type was applied as the Fitting function based on some significant set of frequencies for the smoothed signals. The obtained results show that the proposed method is efficient and easy to apply in extracting of a hidden information from signals corresponding to the four investigated drugs

The association between dementia and the risk of hypoglycaemia events among patients with diabetes mellitus: a propensity-score matched cohort analysis

BackgroundHypoglycaemia commonly occurs in patients diagnosed with diabetes mellitus (DM) and dementia. The impact of dementia on hypoglycaemic events is controversial. Thus, we evaluated whether dementia increases the risk of hypoglycaemic events in older patients diagnosed with DM.DesignA retrospective cohort study.SettingWe used the IQVIA Medical Research Data (IMRD-UK) database (formerly known as the THIN database).ParticipantsAll patients aged ≥55 years and diagnosed with DM who were prescribed at least two prescriptions of antidiabetic medication between 2000 and 2017. Two groups of patients, dementia and non-dementia group, were propensity-score (PS) matched at 1:2. The risk of hypoglycaemia was assessed through a Cox regression analysis.Main outcome and measuresHypoglycaemic events were determined during the follow-up period by Read codes.ResultsFrom the database, 133,664 diabetic patients were identified, with a mean follow-up of 6.11 years. During the study period, 7,762 diabetic patients diagnosed with dementia were matched with 12,944 diabetic patients who had not been diagnosed with dementia. The PS-matched Cox regression analysis showed that patients diagnosed with dementia were at a 2-fold increased risk for hypoglycaemic events compared with those not diagnosed with dementia (hazard ratio [HR], 2.00; 95% CI, 1.63–2.66). A similar result was shown for a multivariable analysis using all patient data (adjusted HR, 2.25; 95% CI, 2.22–2.32).ConclusionOur findings suggest that diabetic patients with a diagnosis of dementia have a statistically significant higher risk of experiencing hypoglycaemia

The Role of Technology in Preventive Measures to Combat Money Laundering Crime: Case study Sudan

This study aimed to highlight the role that technology can play in the preventive measures to combat money laundering, especially since money laundering crimes have become dependent on advanced technical techniques in addition to many electronic means that are currently available. This necessitated the development of advanced technical means and tools to combat money laundering. The researchers used the case study methodology, which is characterized by many advantages that make it suitable for this study, including that it allows the collection of data from multiple sources. The study reached many results, the most prominent of which is that the phenomenon of money laundering passes in most of the stage of transfers through bank accounts, which must provide a degree of banking secrecy for customer accounts, which makes the matter of balancing between combating money laundering and maintaining the secrecy of customer accounts difficult and not Palliser. The most prominent of the recommendations of this study is that the legislation and laws of money laundering crimes must be revised and followed up with the necessary decisive, strict and rapid amendments, at least annually

FPGA Hardware Implementation of DOA Estimation Algorithm Employing LU Decomposition

In this paper, authors present their work on field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware implementation of proposed direction of arrival estimation algorithms employing LU factorization. Both L and U matrices were considered in computing the angle estimates. Hardware implementation was done on a Virtex-5 FPGA and its experimental verification was performed using National Instruments PXI platform which provides hardware modules for data acquisition, RF down-conversion, digitization, etc. A uniform linear array consisting of four antenna elements was deployed at the receiver. LabVIEW FPGA modules with high throughput math functions were used for implementing the proposed algorithms. MATLAB simulations of the proposed algorithms were also performed to validate the efficacy of the proposed algorithms prior to hardware implementation of the same. Both MATLAB simulation and experimental verification establish the superiority of the proposed methods over existing methods reported in the literature, such as QR decomposition-based implementations. FPGA compilation results report low resource usage and faster computation time compared with the QR-based hardware implementation. Performance comparison in terms of estimation accuracy, percentage resource utilization, and processing time is also presented for different data and matrix sizes