The association between financial derivatives and firms' value and performance: evidence from the UK’s financial firms

There is a consensus among industry players and academics that the ungoverned use of complex financial derivatives in a high volume of transactions, which very few fully understood, and the lack of transparency underlying the transactions of those complex financial derivatives, played an important role in the occurrence of the 2007 financial crisis. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate how financial firms use financial derivatives that can affect firm value and the performance of the financial industry.This study attempts to shed more light on how UK financial firms conduct their risk management policies by using financial derivatives for hedging. We use an unbalanced dataset which comprises information on 128 UK financial firms, from the time period between 2005 and 2014. We find that 35.18% of the firms use derivatives and 32.14% use them for hedging purposes only.We employ the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimator for the Panel Data, which produces consistent and significant results. Our regression results show positive and statistically significant relationships between the use of derivatives for hedging and firm value. Meanwhile, the regression results dealing with Return on Assets (ROA) and Stock Return (SR) suggest that the use of derivatives for foreign exchange rate risk (FX) and interest rate risk (IR) has mixed positive and negative significant impacts on accounting and market performance. Thus, we can conclude that our findings support the notion in the risk management literature that the effect of derivatives usage on firm performance is mixed and ambiguous

Optimal water resources management model for Ash Sharqiyah region domestic water supply, Oman

Continuously increasing water demand in various sectors is intensifying the water scarcity problem particularly in arid and semi-arid regions like Oman. In many areas of the Sultanate, demand for water far exceeds its current availability. This presents logistical challenges in overcoming this situation or at least keeping the water deficit as low as possible. In Oman, most of the readily accessible fresh groundwater resources have already been extensively developed in order to attempt to meet the increasing demand for water, and any further intensification of groundwater abstraction is therefore not sustainable. Attention has therefore turned to desalination of sea water to supplement the available groundwater resources. Desalination is expensive and energy intensive; hence it cannot realistically be the sole source of drinking water in Oman. Rather, a conjunctive use of groundwater and desalination optimally operated to meet water demands while ensuring the sustainability of the groundwater resources is the best option. Thus, a numerical simulation model of Ash Sharqiyah Sands Aquifer was developed in this study and used to assess the long-term impacts on piezometric heads of supplying the eight Wilayats of Ash Sharqiyah Region with water from the 29 operational wells located in two regional groundwater fields- the Jaalan and the Al Kamil. The simulation results showed that the existing provision from the two wellfields will be inadequate by the 1st of September 2025 to meet domestic water supply needs without creating excessive drawdown and the cessation of flow in some of the existing operational Aflaj, which are artificial, surface channels that tap and convey by gravity groundwater for diversion into various uses along its route. Supplementing the abstraction from the wellfields with the more costly desalinated water of the Sur Desalination Plant offers the prospect for combating the problem; consequently, a constrained optimization problem was formulated to find the least cost blending of groundwater and desalinated water to meet demands while satisfying various constraints including the need to maintain Aflaj flow. The optimisation revealed increasing contribution of desalination to future total water supply for the Region, as desalination water replaces pumping from wells that affect Aflaj flow, with implications for the project cost. However, significant reduction in the long-term total production cost was achieved by increasing up to 50% the existing pump capacity at the Jaalan, made possible because its associated Aflaj are located upstream of the wellfield and are hence only minimally affected by the current abstractions

Isolation and identification of some bacterial isolates from soil contaminated with crude oil and Testing Their Effectiveness

عزلت سلالات بكتيرية من التربة الملوثة بالنفط، في عام 2018، تم توصيف هذه العزلات، وذلك بهدف معرفة قدرة هذه العزلات على معالجة التربة الملوثة بالنفط. تمت قراءة تغير لون الوسط المضاف إليه العزلات بطريقة Pacto Bushnell Hans. كما درس التغيير في طبيعة المواد المكونة للنفط بواسطة كروماتوجرافيا الغاز للعزلات الأكثر فاعلية. أظهرت العزلات البكتيرية التسعة المعزولة درجات مختلفة من التغير اللوني، وتفوقت العزلات (Pseudomonas، Bacillus، Micrococcus) على باقي العزلات بكمية تغير اللون حيث بلغت النسبة المئوية للتغير اللوني  (78، 78، 77) ٪ على التوالي، مقارنة مع الشاهد، وأظهرت العزلات الثلاثة مجتمعةً أفضل تغيير للون بلغ  90.7 ٪ مقارنة بالشاهد، وأظهرت نتائج فصل المواد عن طريق كروماتوغرافيا الغاز أن هناك تغيرات في طبيعة المواد الموجودة في النفط الخام (الشاهد بدون عزلات) مقارنة بتلك الموجودة في النفط الخام بدون إضافة عزلات. كما أعطت العزلات الثلاث مجتمعة أعلى نسبة تغير في تركيب المواد الداخلة في النفط الخام مقارنة بالعزلات الثلاثة المفردة. مما يؤكد فعالية كل عزلة على حدة على تفكيك النفط الخام وقدرة هذه العزلات مع بعضها(متأزرة) على تفكيك النفط الخام.Bacterial strains were isolated from oil-contaminated soil, in 2018, these isolates were identified, and with the aim of finding out the ability of these isolates to degrede the oil compounds, the color change of medium which added to it isolates was read by the method of Pacto Bushnell Hans. Then the change in the petroleum compounds was read by gas chromatography, for the most effective isolates. The nine isolated bacterial showed different degrees of color change, and the isolates (Pseudomonas, Bacillus, Micrococcus) outperformed the color change amount (78, 78, 77) %, respectively, compared to the control, and the three isolates together showed the best color change of 90.7. % Compared to the control, and the results of separating materials by means of gas chromatography showed that there were changes in the nature of the materials present in the crude oil (control: without isolates) compared to those present in the crude oil That disintegrated by means of the three single isolates. The three isolates together showed a greater ability to change the nature of the materials present in the crude oil. Which confirms the effectiveness of each isolate separately and the ability of these isolates together to degerde crude oil

Fabrications Concerning the Inheritance of Males and Females: A Jurisprudential and Linguistic Study

أهداف البحث:  يهدف البحث  إلى الرد على من سوّى في الميراث بين الأولاد، فجاء البحث ليجيب على الأسئلة الآتية: - ما ميراث كل من الذكر والأنثى في القرآن الكريم؟ - وما الرؤية الجديدة التي ينادي بها البعض فيما يخص التسوية بين الأولاد في الميراث؟ - وهل تطابقت هذه الرؤية مع نصوص القرآن؟ منهج الدراسة: اعتمد البحث على المناهج الوصفي، والاستقرائي، والتحليلي. النتائج: توصل البحث إلى أنه: لم يقع خلاف بين المسلمين في أن للذكر ضعف ما للأنثى عند الاجتماع، وأن للأنثى الواحدة النصف، وللأنثيين فأكثر الثلثين عند الانفراد عن الذكر.  جعل صاحب هذه الرؤية للذكر مثل ما للأنثى في حالتين، حالة وجود أنثى واحدة، وحالة وجود أنثيين، ثم جعل بعد ذلك للذكر ضعف ما للأنثى. إن الأخذ بالرؤية الجديدة إضافة إلى كونه يجعل التخبط واقعًا في ميراث الأولاد، فإنه سيحرم كلًا من الأبوين والزوجين من الميراث، كما أنها رؤية لا تنم عن تصور للواقع؛ إذ لم تبين لنا باقي الحالات المحتملة والواقعة. أصالة البحث: للبحث أهمية في توجيه نظر عامة المسلمين إلى تخبط أفكار من يدعون للتسوية في الميراث بين الذكور والإناث، ويبين البحث سطحية آرائهم وتناقضها مع نصوص القرآن الكريم.Purpose: The study aims to respond to those who advocate for equal shares of inheritance among the children. It answers the following questions: - What is the inheritance share for both male and female inheritors in the Holy Qur'an? - What new view are some advocating with regard to equal shares among children in inheritance? - Does this view comply to the texts of the Holy Qur'an? Methodology: The study is based on the descriptive, inductive, and analytical approaches. Findings: The study concludes that there is no disagreement among Muslim scholars as to that a male receives twice as much as a female inheritor when inheriting simultaneously. Furthermore, a female inherits half when she is alone. However, when she is inheriting with one or more other females without a male, they receive two thirds of the shares. The new view advocates that equal inheritance between a male and a female applies in two scenarios: in the case of the presence of a single female, and of two female inheritors. A male inheritor receives twice the share of a female inheritor in the remaining cases. The application of the new view, in addition to causing confusion in the inheritance of children, deprives both parents and the spouse of the deceased of inheritance. Furthermore, this is a view that does not reflect reality since it does not address the other possible inheritance scenarios. Originality: The study’s importance lies in that it turns the view of general Muslims to the confusion caused by the those advocating for equal shares in inheritance among male and female inheritors. Moreover, the study shows the superficiality of such opinions and their contradiction with the texts of the  Holy Quran

Managing Transformers Risk through Failure Codification

The fast development and expansion of any service organizations which followed by increases in the asset numbers that’s need to have a proper maintenance strategy which should be cost effective. The aim of any strategy is to have a plan that contribute to improve asset performance by reducing downtime of asset failures. The aim of this paper is to set plan that determine the processes of creating failure code that can create a library of failure modes with its consequences and risk. This allow service provider to quickly understand the problem and any action that can be taken which have already proven by failure mode effect analysis. Also it’s identify most of the functional failures that might happened in the critical asset in the OETC’s network. In this study the transformer asset class was taken into the consideration for full failure mood and fault tree analysis. Defining failure codes can give specific instructions to complete a task to reduce the main time to wait in any failure from the total main time to repair, and any smiler failure mode from other assets the corrective action will remain consistent. The selective processes of creating a failure code give the organization a more holistic view of transformers risk which will be used to improve maintenance strategy by integrate those codes into work order system like CMMS

Effect of Moulding Temperature on Mechanical Properties of Pure Aluminum Sand Casting

In this study, mechanical properties (Tensile test, Brinell hardness and microstructure analysis) of pure aluminium after sand casting were investigated. Tensile test, Brinell hardness and microstructure analysis were performed using MAX text software, Universal Testing Machine and Escope with Clemax Imager, respectively. Sand cast aluminium was observed to have good tensile and hardness properties. From the observations, sand cast sample had uniform distribution of aluminium. &nbsp

A comparative study of condition indices and heavy metals in Perna viridis populations at Sebatu and Muar, Peninsular Malaysia

This study compared some allometric parameters (shell length, shell width, shell height, total dry weight of soft tissues, condition index and heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb and Zn) in the different soft tissues of Perna viridis collected from Sebatu and Muar estuary. It was found that the total dry weight of soft tissues and condition index of mussels collected from Sebatu were significantly (p<0.05) higher than those in Muar. The significantly (p<0.05) higher concentrations of Cu in most soft tissues and some of Cd indicated a higher bioavailability of Cu and Cd at Muar than Sebatu. In addition, the significantly (p<0.05) higher levels of Cu, Cd, Zn and Pb in surface sediments collected from Muar supported the observable anthropogenic impacts at Muar than Sebatu and hence, higher metal contamination at Muar than Sebatu. The higher condition index value in mussels recorded in Sebatu than in Muar was believed to be a result of higher metal contamination at Muar estuary

Social Networking Sites as Marketing and Outreach Tools of Library and Information Services

At a time when Web 2 0 applications in libraries have gained growing popularity globally it appears that the library must consider marketing its services more regularly through the Internet taking advantage of Web 2 0 applications to improve access to its users and to promote information services Many studies have discussed the importance of enhancing library services through Web 2 0 applications such as blogs wikis RSS Really Simple Syndication podcasts and social networking sites SNSs However very few studies have focused on social networking sites in relation to marketing strategies for library and information services The main purpose of this paper is to explore the varied marketing activities of libraries on SNSs focusing on Facebook as it is recognized as a popular SNS used among libraries Additionally the study introduces the role of library and information professionals LIPs within SNSs as well as user contributions to the marketing process Web content is used in a quantitative approach Twenty public libraries that have Facebook pages have been selected as subject sample

A new approach in cryptographic systems using fractal image coding

Problem statement: With the rapid development in the communications and information transmissions there is a growing demand for new approaches that increase the security of cryptographic systems. Approach: Therefore some emerging theories, such as fractals, can be adopted to provide a contribution toward this goal. In this study we proposed a new cryptographic system utilizing fractal theories; this approach exploited the main feature of fractals generated by IFS techniques. Results: Double enciphering and double deciphering methods performed to enhance the security of the system. The encrypted date represented the attractor generated by the IFS transformation, collage theorem was used to find the IFSM for decrypting data. Conclusion/Recommendations: The proposed method gave the possibility to hide maximum amount of data in an image that represent the attractor of the IFS without degrading its quality and to make the hidden data robust enough to withstand known cryptographic attacks and image processing techniques which did not change the appearance of image

The cloud computing systems’ adoption in the higher education sector in Oman in light of the COVID-19 pandemic

The objective of the research was to find out the key factors that influence the acceptance and usage of cloud computing systems in the Omani higher education sector, with special emphasis on the COVID-19 outbreak. For this purpose, a quantitative research approach was conducted where 200 students from several Omani higher education institutions were surveyed, and by using Partial Least Square (PLS) to analysis the collected data. The findings revealed that the intention to use cloud computing in this context is significantly dependent on its perceived ease of use, usefulness, perceived reliability and responsiveness. It is noteworthy that this is one of the early studies that address the subject of cloud computing usage during times of crises, and specifically the COVID-19 outbreak. As such, it provides significant contributions in the area of technology adoption