The Non- Financial Factors Influencing The Performance of Islamic Insurance In Kenya: A Case Study of Takaful Insurance of Africa

It has been two years since the first Islamic insurance began operations in Kenya making the first of its kind in the whole of east and central Africa, although the growth potential and performance of Islamic insurance abroad have been remarkable, in Kenya it has proven either wise hence the study was conducted to determine, what are the non-financial factors influencing the performance of Islamic insurance in Kenya. And the independent variables’ being studied was: legal and regulatory framework, unethical practices while the dependent variable being studied was performance of Islamic insurance. The first objective of the study was the legal and regulatory framework and out of the secondary findings it was found out that the sharia boards were considered to have a strong authority on the performance of Islamic insurance and also it defines the extents and limits of its operations. The second objective of the study was, unethical practice has shown that due to the flexibility of the insurance market on allowing intermediaries to plays match makers some of the agents and brokers have used these avenues to exploit customers hence affecting the performance of the insurance company’s. Keywords: Islamic insurance, Non-financial performance, Takafu

Efficient and Privacy-Preserving Ride Sharing Organization for Transferable and Non-Transferable Services

Ride-sharing allows multiple persons to share their trips together in one vehicle instead of using multiple vehicles. This can reduce the number of vehicles in the street, which consequently can reduce air pollution, traffic congestion and transportation cost. However, a ride-sharing organization requires passengers to report sensitive location information about their trips to a trip organizing server (TOS) which creates a serious privacy issue. In addition, existing ride-sharing schemes are non-flexible, i.e., they require a driver and a rider to have exactly the same trip to share a ride. Moreover, they are non-scalable, i.e., inefficient if applied to large geographic areas. In this paper, we propose two efficient privacy-preserving ride-sharing organization schemes for Non-transferable Ride-sharing Services (NRS) and Transferable Ride-sharing Services (TRS). In the NRS scheme, a rider can share a ride from its source to destination with only one driver whereas, in TRS scheme, a rider can transfer between multiple drivers while en route until he reaches his destination. In both schemes, the ride-sharing area is divided into a number of small geographic areas, called cells, and each cell has a unique identifier. Each driver/rider should encrypt his trip's data and send an encrypted ride-sharing offer/request to the TOS. In NRS scheme, Bloom filters are used to compactly represent the trip information before encryption. Then, the TOS can measure the similarity between the encrypted trips data to organize shared rides without revealing either the users' identities or the location information. In TRS scheme, drivers report their encrypted routes, an then the TOS builds an encrypted directed graph that is passed to a modified version of Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm to search for an optimal path of rides that can achieve a set of preferences defined by the riders

Gravity theory in SAP-geometry

The aim of the present paper is to construct a field theory in the context of absolute parallelism (Teleparallel) geometry under the assumption that the canonical connection is semi-symmetric. The field equations are formulated using a suitable Lagrangian first proposed by Mikhail and Wanas. The mathematical and physical consequences arising from the obtained field equations are investigated.Comment: 14 pages, References added and a reference updated, minor correction

L’ Internet : Un support indispensable de la communication financière

La communication financière et l’Internet sont devenus parmi les sujets primordiaux du quotidien, leur importance est croissance sont développée de plus en plus. Cette croissance est due à l’internationalisation des marchés financiers et à l’harmonisation comptable au niveau international. Ainsi, l’Internet est utilisé comme support de stockage et de diffusion des informations particulièrement financières dont l’objectif est de créer une image positive et crédible pour les entreprises, aussi, mettre en avant les atouts financiers et extra-financiers. Cet article a pour objet de montrer, après avoir présenté les éléments de définition, les typologies de la communication financière et ses différents supports, que l’Internet en particulier comme moyen indispensable de la communication financière

Effects of Escapin Intermediate Products (EIP-K) on Biofilms of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

Escapin is an L-amino acid oxidase that produces antimicrobial metabolites collectively called “Escapin Intermediate Products” (EIP-K). EIP-K and H2O2 together were previously shown to be bactericidal towards diverse planktonic bacteria. The present work investigates the ability of EIP-K and H2O2 to antagonize bacterial biofilms, using Pseudomonas aeruginosa as a model. The project had three aims: 1) determine the most effective concentrations of EIP-K and H2O2 necessary to break down existing P. aeruginosa biofilms, using a crystal violet assay; 2) examine the ability of EIP-K + H2O2 to inhibit biofilm formation, using triphenyl tetrazolium chloride dye; and 3) determine the effect of EIP-K + H2O2 on the viability, biomass and structure of biofilms cultivated in flow cells using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). Results showed that EIP-K + H2O2 significantly reduced biofilm biomass relative to controls and that the compounds are effective at nanomolar concentrations

Feature-based hybrid inspection planning for complex mechanical parts

Globalization and emerging new powers in the manufacturing world are among many challenges, major manufacturing enterprises are facing. This resulted in increased alternatives to satisfy customers\u27 growing needs regarding products\u27 aesthetic and functional requirements. Complexity of part design and engineering specifications to satisfy such needs often require a better use of advanced and more accurate tools to achieve good quality. Inspection is a crucial manufacturing function that should be further improved to cope with such challenges. Intelligent planning for inspection of parts with complex geometric shapes and free form surfaces using contact or non-contact devices is still a major challenge. Research in segmentation and localization techniques should also enable inspection systems to utilize modern measurement technologies capable of collecting huge number of measured points. Advanced digitization tools can be classified as contact or non-contact sensors. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a hybrid inspection planning system that benefits from the advantages of both techniques. Moreover, the minimization of deviation of measured part from the original CAD model is not the only characteristic that should be considered when implementing the localization process in order to accept or reject the part; geometric tolerances must also be considered. A segmentation technique that deals directly with the individual points is a necessary step in the developed inspection system, where the output is the actual measured points, not a tessellated model as commonly implemented by current segmentation tools. The contribution of this work is three folds. First, a knowledge-based system was developed for selecting the most suitable sensor using an inspection-specific features taxonomy in form of a 3D Matrix where each cell includes the corresponding knowledge rules and generate inspection tasks. A Travel Salesperson Problem (TSP) has been applied for sequencing these hybrid inspection tasks. A novel region-based segmentation algorithm was developed which deals directly with the measured point cloud and generates sub-point clouds, each of which represents a feature to be inspected and includes the original measured points. Finally, a new tolerance-based localization algorithm was developed to verify the functional requirements and was applied and tested using form tolerance specifications. This research enhances the existing inspection planning systems for complex mechanical parts with a hybrid inspection planning model. The main benefits of the developed segmentation and tolerance-based localization algorithms are the improvement of inspection decisions in order not to reject good parts that would have otherwise been rejected due to misleading results from currently available localization techniques. The better and more accurate inspection decisions achieved will lead to less scrap, which, in turn, will reduce the product cost and improve the company potential in the market

Compression médullaire au cours d’une spondylodiscite tuberculeuse: à propos d’un cas

Patient âgé de 76 ans, admis en pneumologie pour prise en charge d'une spondylodiscite tuberculeuse découverte par un tableau clinique associant amaigrissement, fièvre prolongée et douleur lombaire lancinante qui datent de 2 mois auparavant, confirmée par tomodensitométrie lombaire. Le diagnostic a été retenu suite à l'étude Gene Xpert sur liquide de ponction biopsie au niveau de l'anomalie vertébrale L1 qui a mis en évidence le mycobacterium tuberculosis. Trois semaines après début de traitement le patient a présenté un déficit moteur au niveau des 2 membres inférieurs suivi d'un déficit sensitif. Ces anomalies ont été confirmées sur IRM qui a montré des anomalies du signal somatique de L1 avec tassement du corps vertébral (A), ces lésions sont réhaussées après injection de gadolinium (B) qui a montré également une rupture corticale postérieure avec épidurite en regard. Cet aspect radiologique a permis de confirmer le diagnostic de compression médullaire sur spondylodiscite tuberculeuse. Quelques jours après le patient a présenté des signes de sepsis sévère compliqué d'un choc septique suite auquel le patient était décédé. La compression médullaire est l'un des aspects rares apparaissant au cours d'une spondylodiscite ayant un potentiel élevé de complications irréversibles en absence d'intervention précoce pour décompression médullaire. La chirurgie et le traitement antibacillaire démarré précocement sont garants d'une évolution favorable à moyen et à long terme

L’ actionnariat Salariat : Une cible significative de la communication Financière

La communication financière est devenue un sujet central du quotidien, elle a pris une importance croissante. Cette croissance est due à la dynamique et l’internationalisation des marchés financiers, à la réglementation de la relation des entreprises avec le marché, et à l’harmonisation comptable et IFRS. Ainsi, elle est utilisée comme moyenne d’attraction des nouveaux investisseurs, de fidélisation des actionnaires salariés et individuels et de valorisation du titre de l’entreprise. Cet article a pour objet de montrer, après avoir présenté le cadre théorique, les éléments de définition et les cibles de la communication financière, que l’actionnariat salariat comme cible significative de la communication financière. &nbsp

On Ray's theorem for weak firmly nonexpansive mappings in Hilbert Spaces

In this work, we introduce notions of generalized firmly nonexpansive (G-firmly non expansive) and fundamentally firmly nonexpansive (F-firmly nonexpansive) mappings and utilize to the same to prove Ray's theorem for G-firmly and F-firmly nonexpansive mappings in Hilbert Spaces. Our results extend the result due to F. Kohsaka [ Ray's theorem revisited: a fixed point free firmly nonexpansive mapping in Hilbert spaces, Journal of Inequalities and Applications (2015) 2015:86 ]