The Financing Problems Facing the Agricultural Sector in Nigeria and the Prospect of Waqf-Muzaraah-Supply Chain Model (WMSCM)

Agriculture sector becomes important sector in many developing countries including in Nigeria. The contribution of agricultural sector to the development of Nigeria is considerable. This important sector was the economic backbone upon which the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria relied for its foreign exchange and revenue. A country was once a net exporter of agricultural products. However, since the discovery of oil in the early 1960, agricultural productivity has continually decreased due to many problems, especially related to financial aspect. Several programmes and policies have been adopted by various administrations to find solution to the dwindling agricultural productivity but to no avail. These solutions have mainly focused on alleviating the financial problems the farmers face. Usually financial intermediaries including banks would provide micro-financing to the farmers but with high interest rates coupled with collateral requirements. Hence, this mode of financing has not produced any significant result. This study will therefore examine problems facing agricultural sector in Nigeria with special emphasis on its financial aspect and propose a Waqf-MuzaraahSupply Chain model (WMSCM). Under this model, Waqf fund will be used for providing financial facility of the farmers. The relationship between farmers and financial institutions is based on partnership where profit and loss will be shared by both parties. This will enhance commitment by and cooperation among both parties to ensure the success of the business. Furthermore, the issues of collateral and high interest rate that constrain the financial ability of the farmers and their agricultural output are inherently solved by the model. Moreover, the model has features of investment and risk diversification for both the financial institutions and the farmers that will lead to high agricultural productivity and employment generation in the economy

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

Fault-tolerance techniques for hybrid CMOS/nanoarchitecture

The authors propose two fault-tolerance techniques for hybrid CMOS/nanoarchitecture implementing logic functions as look-up tables. The authors compare the efficiency of the proposed techniques with recently reported methods that use single coding schemes in tolerating high fault rates in nanoscale fabrics. Both proposed techniques are based on error correcting codes to tackle different fault rates. In the first technique, the authors implement a combined two-dimensional coding scheme using Hamming and Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codes to address fault rates greater than 5. In the second technique, Hamming coding is complemented with bad line exclusion technique to tolerate fault rates higher than the first proposed technique (up to 20). The authors have also estimated the improvement that can be achieved in the circuit reliability in the presence of Don-t Care Conditions. The area, latency and energy costs of the proposed techniques were also estimated in the CMOS domain

The Concept and Practice of Macroprudential Policy in Indonesia: Islamic and Conventional

This study aims to examine reserve ratio (GWM), and capital buffer toward credit growth; the impact of macroeconomic variables and micro-banking specific factors toward credit growth in Islamic and Conventional Bank. This research using Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). This research finds that macroprudential policy based on GWM instrument positively influence the credit growth of conventional and Islamic banks. From macroeconomic, the credit growth is positively affected by GDP and negatively affected by BI Rate and inflation. Also, credit also affected by deposit funds and default rate ratio. Interestingly, there is a different impact of capital buffer instrument toward credit growth. Capital buffer instrument has negatively affected the financing growth of Islamic banks in Indonesia.DOI: 10.15408/aiq.v10i1.544

Preparation of Scanning Tunneling Microscopy Tips Using Pulsed Alternating Current Etching

An electrochemical method using pulsed alternating current etching (PACE) to produce atomically sharp scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tips is presented. An Arduino Uno microcontroller was used to control the number and duration of the alternating current (AC) pulses, allowing for ready optimization of the procedures for both Pt:lr and W tips using a single apparatus. W tips prepared using constant and pulsed AC power were compared. Tips fashioned using PACE were sharper than those etched with continuous AC power alone. Pt:lr tips were prepared with an initial coarse etching stage using continuous AC power followed by fine etching using PACE. The number and potential of the finishing AC pulses was varied and scanning electron microscope imaging was used to compare the results. Finally, tip quality using the optimized procedures was verified by UHY-STM imaging. With PACE, at least 70% of the W tips and 80% of the Pt:lr tips were of sufficiently high quality to obtain atomically resolved images of HOPG or Ni(l 11 )

AXL modulates extracellular matrix protein expression and is essential for invasion and metastasis in endometrial cancer

The receptor tyrosine kinase AXL promotes migration, invasion, and metastasis. Here, we evaluated the role of AXL in endometrial cancer. High immunohistochemical expression of AXL was found in 76% (63/83) of advanced-stage, and 77% (82/107) of high-grade specimens and correlated with worse survival in uterine serous cancer patients. In vitro, genetic silencing of AXL inhibited migration and invasion but had no effect on proliferation of ARK1 endometrial cancer cells. AXL-deficient cells showed significantly decreased expression of phospho-AKT as well as uPA, MMP-1, MMP-2, MMP-3, and MMP-9. In a xenograft model of human uterine serous carcinoma with AXL-deficient ARK1 cells, there was significantly less tumor burden than xenografts with control ARK1 cells. Together, these findings underscore the therapeutic potentials of AXL as a candidate target for treatment of metastatic endometrial cancer

Reciprocal regulation of PKA and rac signaling

Activated G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and receptor tyrosine kinases relay extracellular signals through spatial and temporal controlled kinase and GTPase entities. These enzymes are coordinated by multifunctional scaffolding proteins for precise intracellular signal processing. The cAMP-dependent protein kinase A (PKA) is the prime example for compartmentalized signal transmission downstream of distinct GPCRs. A-kinase anchoring proteins tether PKA to specific intracellular sites to ensure precision and directionality of PKA phosphorylation events. Here, we show that the Rho-GTPase Rac contains A-kinase anchoring protein properties and forms a dynamic cellular protein complex with PKA. The formation of this transient core complex depends on binary interactions with PKA subunits, cAMP levels and cellular GTP-loading accounting for bidirectional consequences on PKA and Rac downstream signaling. We show that GTP-Rac stabilizes the inactive PKA holoenzyme. However, β-adrenergic receptor-mediated activation of GTP-Rac–bound PKA routes signals to the Raf-Mek-Erk cascade, which is critically implicated in cell proliferation. We describe a further mechanism of how cAMP enhances nuclear Erk1/2 signaling: It emanates from transphosphorylation of p21-activated kinases in their evolutionary conserved kinase-activation loop through GTP-Rac compartmentalized PKA activities. Sole transphosphorylation of p21-activated kinases is not sufficient to activate Erk1/2. It requires complex formation of both kinases with GTP-Rac1 to unleash cAMP-PKA–boosted activation of Raf-Mek-Erk. Consequently GTP-Rac functions as a dual kinase-tuning scaffold that favors the PKA holoenzyme and contributes to potentiate Erk1/2 signaling. Our findings offer additional mechanistic insights how β-adrenergic receptor-controlled PKA activities enhance GTP-Rac–mediated activation of nuclear Erk1/2 signaling