Determinants of sustainable growth: A comparative analysis of conventional and Islamic banks

The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the effect of intangible and financial resources on accounting- and market-based performance of two bank business models i.e. conventional and Islamic banks operating in fourteen different countries worldwide for two periods referred as pre (2006-2007) and post (2009-2010) financial crisis (568 observations). The required data to calculate different constituents of intangible (i.e. intellectual capital (IC)) and financial resources is derived from Bankscope database. The results reveal that both IC and financial capital resources are necessary for banks being conventional or Islamic to create value at all times i.e. pre- and post-crisis period. The results further indicate a positive relationship between IC, financial capital and accounting performance of both sets of banking; however IC and financial capital are only significantly associated with the market value of Islamic banks.</jats:p

Blue Nile Runoff Sensitivity to Climate Change

This study describes implementation of hydrological climate change impact assessment tool utilising a combination of statistical spatiotemporal downscaling and an operational hydrological model known as the Nile Forecasting System. A spatial rainfall generator was used to produce high-resolution (daily, 20km) gridded rainfall data required by the distributed hydrological model from monthly GCM outputs. The combined system was used to assess the sensitivity of upper Blue Nile flows at Diem flow gauging station to changes in future rainfall during the June-September rainy season based on output from three GCMs. The assessment also incorporated future evapotranspiration changes over the basin. The climate change scenarios derived in this study were broadly in line with other studies, with the majority of scenarios indicating wetter conditions in the future. Translating the impacts into runoff in the basin showed increased future mean flows, although these would be offset to some degree by rising evapotranspiration. Impacts on extreme runoff indicated the possibility of more severe floods in future. These are likely to be exacerbated by land-use changes including overgrazing, deforestation, and improper farming practices. Blue Nile basin flood managers therefore need to continue to prepare for the possibility of more frequent floods by adopting a range of measures to minimise loss of life and guard against other flood damage

Intellectual capital, financial crisis and performance of Islamic banks: Does Shariah governance matter?

© 2017, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. All rights reserved. This paper empirically examines the impact of intellectual capital (IC) and Shariah governance on economic performance of 47 Islamic banks (IBs) operating in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region in pre- and post-financial crisis period. The analysis suggests that higher IC efficiency helps IBs to improve their odds of survival at all times i.e. before- and after-crisis. Further, higher IC efficiency helps IBs to maintain their profitability i.e. ROA and market valuation i.e. Tobin’s Q at all times. Arguably, knowledge-resources i.e. IC is the main line of defence for IBs against negative shocks. Lastly, the study reveals that Shariah governance alone may fall short in explaining the growth trends in Islamic finance industry

Improved nanopatterning for YBCO nanowires approaching the depairing current

An improved nanopatterning procedure has been developed to obtain YBCO nanowires with cross sections as small as 50x50 nm^2, protected by an Au capping layer. To probe the effective role of the Au protecting layer, we have measured the current-voltage characteristics and the resistive transition in temperature of the nanowires. Critical current densities up to 10^8 A/cm^2 have been achieved at T=4.2 K, approaching the theoretical depairing current limit. The resistance, measured as a function of temperature close to Tc, has been fitted with a thermal activated phase slip model, including the effect of the gold layer. The extracted values of the superconducting coherence length and of the London penetration depth give current densities consistent with the measured ones. These results cannot be achieved with same nanowires, without the Au capping layer.Comment: ASC 2012 conference contributio

A method for performance diagnosis and evaluation of video trackers

Several measures for evaluating multi-target video trackers exist that generally aim at providing ‘end performance.’ End performance is important particularly for ranking and comparing trackers. However, for a deeper insight into trackers’ performance it would also be desirable to analyze key contributory factors (false positives, false negatives, ID changes) that (implicitly or explicitly) lead to the attainment of a certain end performance. Specifically, this paper proposes a new approach to enable a diagnosis of the performance of multi-target trackers as well as providing a means to determine the end performance to still enable their comparison in a video sequence. Diagnosis involves analyzing probability density functions of false positives, false negatives and ID changes of trackers in a sequence. End performance is obtained in terms of the extracted performance scores related to false positives, false negatives and ID changes. In the experiments, we used four state-of-the-art trackers on challenging real-world public datasets to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Lifting the Lid on Financial Inclusion: Evidence from Emerging Economies

Financial inclusion has become a subject of growing interest for academics, professionals, and policy-makers in recent times. Researchers stress the importance of financial inclusion and highlight the significant role of financial institutions, such as banks, in promoting financial inclusion. Therefore, it is imperative to analyse the role and commitment of banks in promoting financial inclusion, especially those financial institutions (i.e., Islamic banks) which came into existence to promote socio-economic justice through redistribution of wealth in society. The study is built on the argument that Islamic banking business model is based on intangible sources i.e., Shari&rsquo;ah law and such sources are exploited to create value i.e., stability, profitability and financial inclusion. The empirical analysis support the hypothesis that Islamic banks utilize various tangible and non-tangible resources to promote financial inclusion. Hence, Islamic banks are serving as the ultimate source of financial inclusion in the society