Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Divergence between Aspirations and Realities of Islamic Economics: A Political Economy Approach to Bridging the Divide

Early writings in Islamic economics depicted a grand and, some would say, utopian image of the type of societal development that would result from implementing Islamic social and economic theory. However, despite the emergence of Islamic economics in a modern sense in the 1960s, we now find that the only manifestation that represents an Islamic alternative to mainstream neo-classical development is the Islamic banking and finance industry (IBF). However, the developments in the IBF industry indicate that it has converged towards conventional finance. Consequently, it has failed to fulfil the institutional and policy aspirations of Islamic economic system. This paper, thus, attempts to identify how such divergence has taken place, presents a conceptual model of development in Islam that goes beyond mere economics and fiqh considerations and suggests a political economy approach to demonstrate that the foundational axioms in fact rely wholly on major institutional implementation. It also identifies the pre-requisites for achieving this that includes political vision, will and leadership.
Demonstration of the Outer Surface of Freeze‐etched Normal Human Platelets: Correlation with Buoyant Density

Summary. The external surface of the normal human platelet shows clusters of spherical particles in a reticular pattern with smooth and regular surface membrane in adjacent areas. Labelling with cationic ferritin demonstrates a diffuse distribution of ferritin particles which stop at the fracture face of the intramembranous surface. The intramembranous surface is not labelled. Previously discrepant observations on the plasma membrane surface are probably due to different techniques of platelet preparation for freeze‐etch electron microscopy. Density‐dependent platelet subpopulations do not differ with respect to the ultrastructural features of their external surface and intramembranous portions of the plasma membrane. Based upon the relationship between platelet density and age, it appears that the ultrastructure of the normal platelet plasma membrane does not change with in vivo ageing.
Service-Learning: A Valuable Means of Preparing Pre-Service Teachers for a Teaching Practicum.

The use of service-learning as a teaching methodology is in its infancy within Australian tertiary institutions. Parker et. al., (2009) noted that, until recently, community service-learning has been underutilised within the Australian higher education system. Within teacher education programs, service-learning has been used primarily as a means of providing real-life experiences for pre-service teachers as well as developing their personal and professional skills. The research conducted in this study focused on ways involvement in a servicelearning experience could contribute to the preparation of pre-service secondary teachers for their first teaching practicum. The participants included Bachelor of Education, Master of Teaching and Graduate Diploma of Education pre-service teachers, all of whom completed a service-learning unit prior to a 10-week practicum. The results indicated that pre-service teachers found that participating in a service-learning program had been of assistance, from both a personal and professional perspective, in helping to meet the challenges of their first practicum.
Changing health-promoting behaviours through narrative interventions: A systematic review

The objective of this review was to summarize the literature supporting narrative interventions that target health-promoting behaviours. Eligible articles were English-language peer-reviewed studies that quantitatively reported the results of a narrative intervention targeting health-promoting behaviours or theoretical determinants of behaviour. Five public health and psychology databases were searched. A total of 52 studies met inclusion criteria. In all, 14 studies found positive changes in health-promoting behaviours after exposure to a narrative intervention. The results for the changes in theoretical determinants were mixed. While narrative appears to be a promising intervention strategy, more research is needed to determine how and when to use these interventions.
Economic Relationship between Alcohol and Cannabis Revisited

Consuming cannabis in combination with alcohol is common among Australian cannabis users. This paper investigates whether the economic relationship between cannabis and alcohol is affected by the manner in which these two substances are used. Our results indicate that cannabis and alcohol are economic complements for all cannabis users, but this relationship is stronger for cannabis users who tend to use alcohol and cannabis together, whom we refer to as polysubstance users. Separate analysis by gender suggests that cannabis consumption by polysubstance and non-polysubstance using males is more responsive to changes in the full price of alcohol than their female counterparts. Copyright © 2004 Economic Society of Australia.
Atmospheric Emissions from Shipping: The Need for Regulation and Approaches to Compliance

Shipping has traditionally been viewed as the least environmentally damaging mode of freight transport. Recent studies have increasingly questioned this perception, as attention has focused on both the greenhouse gas emissions (mainly CO2) and the emission of health-damaging pollutants (such as sulphur, nitrogen oxides and particulates) by ships. This paper reviews the available evidence on the atmospheric emissions of shipping. It proposes that the profit objective has prompted the pursuit of greater fuel efficiency within the sector, but that reliance on market forces alone is insufficient to deliver on the environmental imperative. The paper outlines the current and planned regulatory regime for the atmospheric emissions from ships and posits that greater, and more diverse, market regulation is required. Alternative general approaches to regulatory compliance are categorised as ‘alternative sources of energy’ or ‘abatement technologies’ and the characteristics of a range of specific options are analysed. The paper concludes that although the shipping industry has been slow to improve its environmental credentials, a combination of regulation and technological innovation provides it with significant potential to dramatically reduce its environmental impact.
Atrial thrombi resolution after prolonged anticoagulation in patients with atrial fibrillation.

BACKGROUND Cardioversion of atrial fibrillation in nonanticoagulated patients may be associated with clinical thromboembolism. Prolonged anticoagulation with warfarin before cardioversion of atrial fibrillation produces a marked reduction of cardioversion-related thromboembolism. The benefit of anticoagulant therapy is generally believed to be due to atrial thrombi organization. PATIENTS AND METHODS Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is highly accurate for diagnosis of atrial thrombi and gives the possibility to serially evaluate the effects of anticoagulant therapy. One hundred twenty-three patients with atrial fibrillation lasting longer than 2 days underwent TEE before cardioversion. An atrial thrombus was identified in 11 patients (9%), and was always confined to the left atrial appendage. TEE was repeated after a median of 4 weeks of oral warfarin. Atrial thrombus had completely resolved in 9 of 11 patients (81.8%; 95% CI, 48.2 to 97.7%); in two patients, clot was still present. No patient had clinical thromboembolism between the two TEE studies. CONCLUSIONS In the population of our study, a prolonged course of warfarin therapy was associated with resolution of atrial thrombi in the majority of patients. According to these data, the mechanism of thromboembolism reduction with 4 weeks of anticoagulation before cardioversion in patients with atrial fibrillation seems to be related mainly to thrombus lysis rather than organization. Due to the possibility of thrombus persistence even after prolonged anticoagulation, follow-up with TEE before cardioversion is necessary to document thrombus resolution.
Intelligence and Sense of Political Efficacy in Children

A SENSE OF political efficacy exists when an individual internalizes an expectation and appraisal of his role as one that is politically effective. " The individual feels that "the probability of his influencing the outcome of events . by means of his political involvement" is high.2 The question of interest here is: Have children, even of primary school age, acquired differential feelings of political efficacy, and if so, what factors contribute significantly to this fact, and what are the larger political implications to be drawn.
Futures Market Failure?

In a well-functioning futures market, the futures price at expiration equals the price of the underlying asset. This condition failed to hold in grain markets for most of 2005-2010, calling into question the ability of these markets to perform their price discovery and risk management functions. During this period, futures contracts expired up to 35% above the cash grain price. We develop a dynamic rational expectations model of commodity storage that explains how these recent convergence failures were generated by the institutional structure of the delivery system. When delivery occurs on a grain futures contract, the firm on the short side of the market provides a delivery instrument (a warehouse receipt or shipping certificate) to the firm on the long side of the market. The firm taking delivery may hold the delivery instrument indefinitely, providing it pays a daily storage rate. The futures exchange sets the maximum allowable storage rate at a fixed value. We show that non-convergence arises in equilibrium when the market price of physical grain storage exceeds the maximum storage rate on delivery instruments. We call the difference between the price of carrying physical grain and the maximum storage rate the wedge , and demonstrate theoretically and empirically that the magnitude of the non-convergence equals the expected present discounted value of a function of future wedges.
Software Defined Radio Implementation of a Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access System Towards 5G

Non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is envisioned to be one of the essential technologies for the fifth generation mobile network. In this paper, we implement a practical downlink NOMA system based on an open-source software defined radio (SDR) platform named as OpenAirInterface (OAI). For comparison purpose, our SDR-based NOMA system follows the basic specifications of long term evolution (LTE). In this system, a codeword-level successive interference cancellation (SIC) receiver is implemented. To improve the efficiency of the baseband signal processing in an SIC receiver, a multi-thread processing method is also introduced. Due to the limitation of original downlink control information (DCI) formats in current LTE systems, a new DCI format is dedicatedly designed for signal reconstitution in our developed NOMA system. Furthermore, some parts of upper layer protocols in LTE systems are modified to support the application services over the developed NOMA system. Based on our NOMA system, a series of over-the-air experiments are carried out, and the experiment results demonstrate that the NOMA scheme has a significant throughput gain compared with an orthogonal multiple access (OMA) scheme.
Corporate governance and the external monitoring of banks in Lebanon

Purpose – Prior research suggests that corporations in countries with a weak and illiquid stock market rely either on internal resources or on loans from the banking system, while family businesses, in their desire to maintain control, prefer debt to equity. Owing to the weak external monitoring role played by the financial markets in Lebanon, this paper aims to goes beyond the financial role played by Lebanese banks by investigating their role in monitoring corporate clients.Design/methodology/approach – A survey was conducted which included 12 questions and focused on the role of banks in Lebanon in fostering proper practices of governance amongst their corporate clients. The completed surveys represent 24 banks, with more than 85 percent of the total deposits, 89 percent of the total loan portfolio, and spanning all bank groupings.Findings – The paper finds that, in addition to their financing role, Lebanese banks are both active monitors of and resource providers to their corporate clients, which is c.
A study of time limited price promotions

Purpose – This paper seeks to provide a detailed study of the impact of offers incorporating a time‐limit restriction on consumers in the context of price promotions. Time limited offers are those where a pricing offer is only available for a specified, normally relatively short, period of time. Although price promotions have been the subject of much previous research, a detailed study of the effects of time limit restrictions on consumer behavior is warranted.Design/methodology/approach – The study incorporates an experimental approach whereby the impact of time‐limited and non time‐limited offers on consumers' assessments of value and search and purchase intentions are isolated.Findings – Findings show that the presence of a time limit does not impact directly on perceptions of value or search and purchase behavior. A marginally significant interaction effect between time limit and discount size is present, impacting in particular on search behavior.Research limitations/implications – The research was c.
The determinants of corporate financial performance in the Bermuda insurance market

Drawing a framework from the organizational economics literature this study examines the determinants of corporate (i.e. underwriting and investment related) financial performance in the Bermuda insurance market. Using panel data for 1993–1997, it was found that, as expected, highly leveraged, lowly liquid companies and reinsurers have better operational performance than lowly leveraged, highly liquid companies and direct insurers. Contrary to what was hypothesized, performance was positively related to underwriting risk. However, the size of companies and the scope of their activities were not found to be important explanatory factors.
Antibody responses in serum and nasal secretions of children immunized with inactivated and attenuated measles-virus vaccines.

Abstract In 24 children immunized with inactivated or attenuated measles-virus vaccines, responses of serum antibody (characterized by density-gradient ultracentrifugation and radioimmunodiffusion studies) were comparable both in peak titers and in immunoglobulin contribution. In eight of nine children immunized with attenuated measles-virus vaccine nasal antibody associated primarily with the γA and less often with γG immunoglobulins developed; nasal antibody was detected in only three of seven immunized with inactivated measles-virus vaccine, and in these both γA and γG activities were observed. Of eight children with pre-existing serum antibody, six had nasal antibody in the preimmunization specimens. The differences in ability of these vaccines to stimulate local respiratory-tract antibody may in part explain the greater clinical effectiveness of the attenuated vaccine as well as the occurrence of altered reactivity of the host who received inactivated vaccine.
The Effects of Automation on Liquidity, Volatility, Stock Returns and Efficiency: Evidence from the Tunisian Stock Market

This paper examines the effects of automation on the liquidity, volatility, returns and efficiency of shares traded on the Tunisian stock exchange (TSE). By the end of 1996, stocks listed on the TSE were transferred gradually from manual trading to automated trading. The TSE operates a continuous market for frequently traded securities and a 'call-auction’ for infrequently traded securities. While our results show an improvement in the liquidity of shares following the automation, returns decreased and no significant effects on volatility or efficiency were detected.
An Inquiry Into the Chilling Effects of Stringent Little Hatch Act Prohibitions

This study examined ways that differences in state political-activity laws affect the political attitudes and reported behavior of state-level public administrators. It included officials employed in Pennsylvania, which has restrictive laws, and New Jersey, which has generally permissive statutes. Compared with New Jersey’s employees, Pennsylvania’s were less knowledgeable about their state laws, less politically active, and less satisfied with their activity. However, the Pennsylvania workers were no less inclined to engage in permissible activities. These findings cast doubt upon the “chilling effects” argument that strict laws prompt government employees to develop apolitical tendencies. Nonetheless, they do raise concerns about the stifling effects of the statutes.
External entrepreneurs/investors and guanxi: hostels in a tourism area, Xinjiang, China

Purpose – This research aims to explore how outsider entrepreneurs maintain harmonious guanxi with stakeholders (especially the government) in an ethnic minority area of less-developed western China. Design/methodology/approach – This paper is derived from an ethnographic study undertaken by the first author who lived for 12 consecutive months in the case area. Findings – This research indicates that outsider entrepreneurs need to balance between standards required by industry associations and sound “guanxi”, between bureaucratic arrangements and business practice, between economic profit and lifestyle within a guanxi-dominated society. It may be argued that the continuance of relationships represents the continuance of resources and benefits and the maintenance of social and political capital. Practical implications – One issue in the relationship with local governments is the question to what degree politicians can influence enterprises’ business? Political guanxi is thus an important key to any underst.
Public opinion as leadership disincentive: exploring a governance dilemma in the AIDS response in Africa

There is increasing emphasis in global declaration on the need to get politics right in the response to AIDS, particularly in terms of strengthening accountable leadership. However, in the worst affected countries in sub-Saharan Africa, such governance prescriptions introduce political concerns that are not well understood. In a context of the neo-patrimonial governance that characterises African democracies, the paper analyses data from the Afrobarometer on public opinions on AIDS in 20 countries to identify and explore the governance dilemma that leaders face when they are expected to show strong leadership on an issue that is low on the public political agenda. By identifying country-level correlates and individual-level determinants of the strong opinion on AIDS that is held by a minority, the paper suggests how public opinion for an effective response can be mobilised in ways that are politically sustainable.
Military expenditure and economic growth: peru 1970–1996

The present study examines the effects of military expenditure on growth in Peru in the period from 1970 to 1996. By using a Deger‐type Simultaneous Equations Model it is possible to break up the net effect into supply‐ and demand‐side influences. The former consist of positive externalities of defence activities on the other sectors of the economy, while the latter can be described as crowding‐out of civilian investment. Estimations find the supply‐side effects to be insignificantly different from zero, while the crowding‐out effect of defence spending is significant and substantial. It is thereby established that defence expenditure has a negative overall effect on economic growth in Peru. Although several caveats – including specification problems of the Deger model, the quality of the data used, a relatively small sample and the presence of autocorrelation in the estimations – must be considered, these results turn out to be quite robust with respect to estimation methods (3SLS, 2SLS, OLS) and slight modifications to the model. They are also consistent with previous empirical findings from other countries and cross sectional studies.
Tourism themed routes: A Queensland perspective

This paper examines the potential role of tourism themed routes, not only as drive tourism products to increase visitation to regional Australia, but also as potential contributors to road network efficiency and improving road safety. The paper is based on extensive research undertaken by Tourism Queensland since the late 1990s into the potential role of themed routes within the tourism framework. These interactive visitor road corridors have demonstrated their ability to affect visitor dispersion, but rely heavily on cross-sector (tourism and transport) cooperation. This paper explores the market for themed routes, examines the potential contribution of tourism themed routes to ‘win-win’ tourism and transport outcomes and highlights the need for greater national coordination.
The impact of trade union membership on training in Britain

In order to measure the union/non-union training differential in Britain, a recursive model of training participation and union membership is estimated, using data taken from the 1989 Labour Force Survey. The results show a positive and significant effect of union membership on training participation in small establishments. This is consistent with the hypothesis that any negative impact on employer-provided training that might have arisen from the union wage mark-up is outweighed by a positive influence exerted by unions through the exercise of collective voice and/or reductions in labour turnover. By contrast, in establishments with 25 or more workers unions have no significant impact on training.
Family Controlled Firms and Informed Trading: Evidence from Short Sales

We investigate the relation between family ownership and the informational content of short sales in U.S. publicly-traded firms. Our analysis indicates that family firms, in aggregate, experience a substantially higher volume of abnormal short sales prior to negative earnings shocks than nonfamily firms, suggesting extensive informed trading. Additional testing indicates that family-control characteristics, such as board involvement, seem to intensify the informed short sale results. The analysis also suggests that daily short-sale interest in family firms contains useful information in forecasting stock returns; however, we find no discernable effect in nonfamily firms. An investment strategy of buying family firms with the lowest level of short sales and shorting family firms with the highest level of short sales generates monthly abnormal returns of 61 basis points, indicating an economically profitable trading strategy. One inference is that regulations designed to limit trading by those with access to material, non-public information appear ill-suited for family firms. Although our data does not allow a specific identification of short sellers, the analysis provides compelling evidence that informed trading via short sales occurs more readily in family firms than in nonfamily firms.
Zero‐Interest Rate Policy and Unintended Consequences in Emerging Markets

Since 2009, central banks in the major advanced economies have held interest rates at very low levels to stabilize financial markets and support the recovery of their economies. Based on a Mises-Hayek-BIS view on credit booms and Mises’ law of unintended consequences, this paper suggests that the prolonged period of very low interest rates in the large advanced economies (unintentionally) spurs volatile capital flows and fuels asset market bubbles in fast-growing emerging markets. The resulting inflationary pressure and risks of capital flow reversals gives rise to a new wave of interventionism as policymakers in emerging markets increasingly reintroduce financially repressive measures to isolate the economies from foreign capital inflows.