Did Global Financial Crisis Impact the Islamic Banking Efficiencies? Evidence From Malaysian Islamic Banks

First, this paper investigated the loan and deposit efficiencies of Malaysian Islamic banks during 2008-2013 applying the non-parametric technique, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), and found that the average technical efficiency (TE) of loan financing was 83%, 88%, 87%, 95%, 100%, and 94% and the average technical efficiency for deposit mobilizations was 87%, 94%, 94%, 96%, 92%, and 96%. Only four banks in 2008, two bank in 2009, three banks in 2010, two banks in 2011-2013 are both technically and scale efficient in loan production. On the other hand, only four banks in 2008 and 2009, five banks in 2010 and 2011, three banks in 2012, and five banks in 2013 are both technical and scale efficient in deposit mobilizations. Second, the paper compares the efficiencies of Islamic banks between the global financial crisis (GFC) and the post global financial crisis (PGFC) in determining whether the efficiencies of banks between the GFCP and PGFCP are stable. Both parametric and non-parametric tests found no significant difference in the efficiencies between the two periods suggesting that the efficiencies of the Malaysian Islamic banks were stable

Community Perceptions of Forced Marriage

NoThis is an analytical report for the Community Liaison Unit (CLU), 'Community Perceptions of Forced Marriage'. This report provides the context, explores the problems and the perceptions of the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities of forced marriages. Therefore, this report represents a comprehensive and rigorous synthesis of existing research evidence combined with primary data collected specifically for the report

Aerial mapping using high resolution digital camera and unmanned aerial vehicle for geographical information system

In aerial photogrammetry, aerial photographs are acquired using aerial camera and light aircraft as a platform. The aerial photographs are usually processed for mapping such as for production of topographic map and other special purpose map known as thematic map. However, this method is expensive and suitable for large area but it is not practical for mapping small area. This study concentrates on the use of high resolution digital camera and a very light platform known as unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) as data acquisition system in capturing digital aerial photographs. The acquired digital aerial photographs were processed using image processing software to produce digital map and digital orthophoto. The results showed that an accuracy of sub-meter can be obtained using the employed method. In Geographical Information System (GIS), it is quite common that topographic map and orthophoto are used as a base map. Hence, the findings from this study could also be used as an input for GIS. Not to forget, the photogrammetric technique could be used not only for mapping but it could also be used for any environmental protection and conservation

Bilevel shared control for teleoperators

A shared system is disclosed for robot control including integration of the human and autonomous input modalities for an improved control. Autonomously planned motion trajectories are modified by a teleoperator to track unmodelled target motions, while nominal teleoperator motions are modified through compliance to accommodate geometric errors autonomously in the latter. A hierarchical shared system intelligently shares control over a remote robot between the autonomous and teleoperative portions of an overall control system. Architecture is hierarchical, and consists of two levels. The top level represents the task level, while the bottom, the execution level. In space applications, the performance of pure teleoperation systems depend significantly on the communication time delays between the local and the remote sites. Selection/mixing matrices are provided with entries which reflect how each input's signals modality is weighted. The shared control minimizes the detrimental effects caused by these time delays between earth and space

Organizational team building culture among teachers in Gombak Selangor

This study examined the organizational team building culture among teachers in Gombak, Selangor. Aspects that were being studied were the teachers’ perception on the elements of team building, the relation between team building factors and motivational factors and differences between gender and the eight factors of team building which were goals, priorities, roles and responsibilities, self-awareness, leadership, group dynamics, communications and environment. The study employed a survey method for collecting data from 100 purposively selected teachers from 10 government aided secondary schools

Web Usage Mining with Evolutionary Extraction of Temporal Fuzzy Association Rules

In Web usage mining, fuzzy association rules that have a temporal property can provide useful knowledge about when associations occur. However, there is a problem with traditional temporal fuzzy association rule mining algorithms. Some rules occur at the intersection of fuzzy sets' boundaries where there is less support (lower membership), so the rules are lost. A genetic algorithm (GA)-based solution is described that uses the flexible nature of the 2-tuple linguistic representation to discover rules that occur at the intersection of fuzzy set boundaries. The GA-based approach is enhanced from previous work by including a graph representation and an improved fitness function. A comparison of the GA-based approach with a traditional approach on real-world Web log data discovered rules that were lost with the traditional approach. The GA-based approach is recommended as complementary to existing algorithms, because it discovers extra rules. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

Temporal fuzzy association rule mining with 2-tuple linguistic representation

This paper reports on an approach that contributes towards the problem of discovering fuzzy association rules that exhibit a temporal pattern. The novel application of the 2-tuple linguistic representation identifies fuzzy association rules in a temporal context, whilst maintaining the interpretability of linguistic terms. Iterative Rule Learning (IRL) with a Genetic Algorithm (GA) simultaneously induces rules and tunes the membership functions. The discovered rules were compared with those from a traditional method of discovering fuzzy association rules and results demonstrate how the traditional method can loose information because rules occur at the intersection of membership function boundaries. New information can be mined from the proposed approach by improving upon rules discovered with the traditional method and by discovering new rules

The army and democracy: military politics in Pakistan

Ye

Pakistani Diaspora in the UK and USA

Ye