Revisiting of an Islamic Options Permisibility From Shariah Perspectives

The popularity of derivative instruments especially in managing uncertainty (risk)had become popular after several financial crises that occurred since the Great EconomicDepression. There are various tools have been developed in managing risk such as the Options,Forwards, Futures and Swaps. In addition, these kinds of tools are commonly used by institutional and individual investors. Given this popularity, conventional risk management strategies is completely against from Islamic risk management as Islamic financial market arekeep on growing drastically at Cumulative Average Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15% on yearlybasis (Mckinsey, 2005). This is clearly shows that, Islamic finance development are in line withconventional financial development. Therefore, there is need to maintain consistency in productstructures offered by these two financial markets. The complexity is mainly contributed by thestructures and the design of the products especially on Islamic derivatives tools. Therefore, to get a significant picture of the Islamic risk management tools, this paper will only examines thecontemporary derivative instruments namely; Option and the Islamic viewpoints of thisinstrument . As we know, Islamic finance is governed by Shariah principle and guidelines whichprohibit Riba, Gharar, and Masir etc. Therefore, this paper attempts to explore the validity ofoptions from Islamic and Shariah perspectives by reviewing Islamic scholars opinions on anoptions market

S100B is increased in mood disorders and may be reduced by antidepressive treatment

Previous studies have reported alterations of glial cells and particularly astrocytes in mood disorders. Therefore, serum concentration of the astrocytic marker S100B was ascertained with an immunoluminometric assay in 20 patients with mood disorder and 12 healthy age-matched controls. Serum S100B was elevated in major depression (median after admission 410 ng/l, at discharge < 100 ng/l) and mania (130, 160 ng/l), when compared with controls (< 100 ng/l; rho< 0.01). Antidepressive treatment reduced S100B in conjunction with severity of depressive symptoms ( rho< 0.01). The severity of depression (Hamilton Depression Rating Scale) was positively correlated with S100B (r(s) = 0.51, rho< 0.005). Elevated serum S100B during depressive and manic episodes of mood disorders may indicate alterations of astrocytes, which are reversed by antidepressive treatment

Rational Approximations for Oscillatory Two-Parameter Mittag-Leffler Function

The two-parameter Mittag-Leffler function $E_{\alpha, \beta}$ is of fundamental importance in fractional calculus. It appears frequently in the solutions of fractional differential and integral equations. Nonetheless, this vital function is often expensive to compute. Several attempts have been made to construct cost-effective and accurate approximations. These attempts focus mainly on the completely monotone Mittag-Leffler functions. However, when $\alpha > 1$ the monotonicity property is largely lost and as such roots and oscillations are exhibited. Consequently, existing approximants constructed mainly for $\alpha \in (0,1)$ often fail to capture this oscillatory behavior. In this paper, we construct computationally efficient and accurate rational approximants for $E_{\alpha, \beta}(-t)$, $t \ge 0$, with $\alpha \in (1,2)$. This construction is fundamentally based on the decomposition of Mittag-Leffler function with real roots into one without and a polynomial. Following which new approximants are constructed by combining the global Pad\'e approximation with a polynomial of appropriate degree. The rational approximants are extended to approximation of matrix Mittag-Leffler and different approaches to achieve efficient implementation for matrix arguments are discussed. Numerical experiments are provided to illustrate the significant accuracy improvement achieved by the proposed approximants.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures and 5 table

The Determinants of Dividend Payout: Evidence From the Malaysian Property Market

The paper aims to investigate the determinants of dividend payout among the Malaysian property companies. The sample size consists of 30 property listed companies on Bursa Malaysia. The data are generally obtained from the company's annual report for the period of 2012 to 2016. The study employs multiple regression analysis to examine the influence of firms specific and macroeconomic variables on dividend payout. Result of the test shows that the dividend payout has a significant negative relationship with ownership structure and positive relationship on return on equity, quick ratio and GDP. The study instigates to enrich the literature on dividend determinants especially in the context of Malaysia