Religious compliance in Islamic financial institutions

The central goal of this research is to explore the approach of the Islamic banking industry in defining and implementing religious compliance at regulatory, institutional, and individual level within the Islamic Banking and Finance (IBF) industry. It also examines the discrepancies, ambiguities and paradoxes that are exhibited in the individual and institutional behaviour in relation to the infusion and enactment of religious exigencies into compliance processes in IBF. Through the combined lenses of institutional work and a sensemaking perspective, this research portrays the practice of infusion of Islamic law in Islamic banks as being ambiguous and drifting down to the institutional and actor levels. In instances of both well-codified and non-codified regulatory frameworks for Shariah compliance, institutional rules ambiguity, rules interpretation and enactment ambiguities were found to be prevalent. The individual IBF professionals performed retrospective and prospective actions to adjust the role and rules boundaries both in the case of a Muslim and a non-Muslim country. The sensitizing concept of religious compliance is the primary theoretical contribution of this research and provides a tool to understand the nature of what constitutes Shariah compliance and the dynamics of its implementation. It helps to explain the empirical consequences of the lack of a clear definition of Shariah compliance in the regulatory frameworks and standards available for the industry. It also addresses the calls to have a clear reference on what constitute Shariah compliance in IBF as proposed in previous studies (Hayat, Butter, & Kock, 2013; Maurer, 2003, 2012; Pitluck, 2012). The methodological and theoretical perspective of this research are unique in the use of multi-level analysis and approaches that blend micro and macro perspectives of the research field, to illuminate and provide a more complete picture of religious compliance infusion and enactment in IBF.

B2B e-marketplaces in the airline industry:process drivers and performance indicators

Competitive pressures are increasing within and between different strategically oriented groups of airlines. This paper focuses on the level of efficiency improvements gained by using e-Marketplaces in the procurement process. Findings from a survey among 88 international airlines reveal that the use of Business-to-Business (B2B) e-Marketplaces does play different roles across the various airline groupings. Airlines that are involved in strategic alliances show higher joint procurement activities than airlines that are not involved in strategic alliances. However, alliances are probably viewed as loose arrangements and thus airlines may be reluctant to share information on procurement prices and processes with another airline that could also be acting as a competitor. The financial involvement in or initiation of e-Marketplaces by airlines is very low. Low cost airlines show high use of e-Marketplaces, but demonstrate little financial involvement in contrast. Overall, the categories of spares and repairs, office supplies, tools and ground support equipment (GSE) show the greatest potential for reducing costs and increasing procurement process efficiencies. The intense competitive pressures facing carriers will make their search for tools to realise even incremental savings and efficiency gains ever more urgent. There is evidence that e-Marketplaces are one tool to improve such performance indicators.

Discovering properties of new DNA-binding activity of proteins

Protein-DNA interactions are an essential feature in the genetic activities of life, and the ability to predict and manipulate such interactions has applications in a wide range of fields. This Thesis presents the methods of modelling the properties of protein-DNA interactions. In particular, it investigates the methods of visualising and predicting the specificity of DNA-binding Cys2His2 zinc finger interaction. The Cys2His2 zinc finger proteins interact via their individual fingers to base pair subsites on the target DNA. Four key residue positions on the a- helix of the zinc fingers make non-covalent interactions with the DNA with sequence specificity. Mutating these key residues generates combinatorial possibilities that could potentially bind to any DNA segment of interest. Many attempts have been made to predict the binding interaction using structural and chemical information, but with only limited success. The most important contribution of the thesis is that the developed model allows for the binding properties of a given protein-DNA binding to be visualised in relation to other protein-DNA combinations without having to explicitly physically model the specific protein molecule and specific DNA sequence. To prove this, various databases were generated, including a synthetic database which includes all possible combinations of the DNA-binding Cys2His2 zinc finger interactions. NeuroScale, a topographic visualisation technique, is exploited to represent the geometric structures of the protein-DNA interactions by measuring dissimilarity between the data points. In order to verify the effect of visualisation on understanding the binding properties of the DNA-binding Cys2His2 zinc finger interaction, various prediction models are constructed by using both the high dimensional original data and the represented data in low dimensional feature space. Finally, novel data sets are studied through the selected visualisation models based on the experimental DNA-zinc finger protein database. The result of the NeuroScale projection shows that different dissimilarity representations give distinctive structural groupings, but clustering in biologically-interesting ways. This method can be used to forecast the physiochemical properties of the novel proteins which may be beneficial for therapeutic purposes involving genome targeting in general.

Developing community and social cohesion through grassroots bridge-building: an exploration

In the context of the UK public policy goal to increase community and social cohesion, this article explores the nature of local 'bridge-building' – activities intended to increase interpersonal contacts between diverse ethnic, faith and nationality groups. We draw on earlier research in a range of fields to develop the bridge-building concept and present findings from a study that identified community-level projects with bridge-building as a specific aim. We show the range of groupings involved, the activities encompassed and their organisational features. We consider the actual and potential contribution of local bridge-building to cohesion in the light of earlier research and our own study.

Building bridges: the third sector responding locally to diversity

This paper focuses on a hitherto unstudied segment of the broad 'third sector': organisations and groupings that aim to build bridges (that is, increase interpersonal contacts) between people of different faiths and/or ethnic groups. We draw on the findings of an empirical study, conducted in three diverse urban areas of England, of community-level projects with bridge building as an explicit aim. We describe the characteristics of bridge-building activities and the challenges they face; both the organisational challenges and those that arise from the nature of bridge building itself. We conclude by exploring the implications of our findings for an understanding of the third sector generally and for the potential role of the sector in responding to our diverse society.

Religious and sexual identities:a multi-faith exploration of young adults

Presenting qualitative and quantitative findings on the lived experiences of around seven hundred young adults from Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh and mixed-faith backgrounds, Religious and Sexual Identities provides an illuminating and nuanced analysis of young adults' perceptions and negotiations of their religious, sexual, youth and gender identities. It demonstrates how these young adults creatively construct meanings and social connections as they navigate demanding but exciting spaces in which their multiple identities intersect. Accessible quantitative analyses are combined with rich interview and video diary narratives in this theoretically-informed exploration of religious and sexual identities in contemporary society. © Andrew Kam-Tuck Yip and Sarah-Jane Page 2013. All rights reserved.

Transgressing community:the case of Muslims in a twenty-first-century British city

This paper draws on ethnographic research carried out in Birmingham, UK – a city significant for its sizeable Muslim population and its iconic role in the history of minority ethnic settlement in Britain – to consider how associations of place and ethnicity work in different ways to inform ideas about ‘Muslim community’ in twenty-first-century Britain. The paper charts happenings around a local event in an area of majority Asian settlement and how representations of the area as a place of Muslim community were used to implicate it in the ‘war on terror’. The paper goes on to show how this sensibility is disrupted by Muslims themselves through alternative engagements with space and ethnicity. The paper argues that these offer a ground for making Muslim community in ways that actively engage with histories and patterns of ethnic settlement in the city rather than being determined by them.

Ist Religion schlecht für Frauen? Empirische Erkenntnisse zum Zusammenhang zwischen öffentlichen Religionen und den Menschenrechten der Frau

Religion is a dynamic concept. It can be a means of supporting masculinist power structures as well as a means for challenging established gender hierarchies. This article therefore suggests the proposition that it is not religion as such constituting a problem for the human rights of women but the privileging of patriarchal interpretations of religion and the marginalization of progressive interpretations in many contexts, respectively. From an empirical perspective, thus, the question of the concrete conditions contributing to the ability of conservative religious actors to enforce their patriarchal views in politics and society arises. This article consults existing empirical studies on predominantly Christian democracies and Muslim societies to find answers to this question. It discusses the impact that the institutional relations between the state and religion, the significance of religion in the political party system as well as the confessional composition and the strength of religiosity in a society have on the human rights of women. The article, moreover, deals with the effect of democracy and certain rights on the promotion of women's rights in religious contexts. It demonstrates the requirement of and provides suggestions for further empirical research in this area.

Transgressing community:the case of Muslims in a twenty-first-century British city

This paper draws on ethnographic research carried out in Birmingham, UK - a city significant for its sizeable Muslim population and its iconic role in the history of minority ethnic settlement in Britain - to consider how associations of place and ethnicity work in different ways to inform ideas about 'Muslim community' in twenty-first-century Britain. The paper charts happenings around a local event in an area of majority Asian settlement and how representations of the area as a place of Muslim community were used to implicate it in the 'war on terror'. The paper goes on to show how this sensibility is disrupted by Muslims themselves through alternative engagements with space and ethnicity. The paper argues that these offer a ground for making Muslim community in ways that actively engage with histories and patterns of ethnic settlement in the city rather than being determined by them.

The potential for pharmacists to manage children attending emergency departments

AIM: There have been concerns about maintaining appropriate clinical staff levels in Emergency Departments in England.1 The aim of this study was to determine if Emergency Department attendees aged from 0-16 years could be managed by community pharmacists or hospital independent prescriber pharmacists with or without further advanced clinical practice training. METHOD: A prospective, 48 site, cross-sectional, observational study of patients attending Emergency Departments (ED) in England, UK was conducted. Pharmacists at each site collected up to 400 admissions and paediatric patients were included in the data collection. The pharmacist independent prescribers (one for each site) were asked to identify patient attendance at their Emergency Department, record anonymised details of the cases-age, weight, presenting complaint, clinical grouping (e.g. medicine, orthopaedics), and categorise each presentation into one of four possible categories: CP, Community Pharmacist, cases which could be managed by a community pharmacist outside an ED setting; IP-cases that could be managed at ED by a hospital pharmacist with independent prescriber status; IPT, Independent Prescriber Pharmacist with additional training-cases which could be managed at ED by a hospital pharmacist independent prescriber with additional clinical training; and MT, Medical Team only-cases that were unsuitable for the pharmacist to manage. An Impact Index was calculated for the two most frequent clinical groupings using the formula: Impact index=percentage of the total workload of the clinical grouping multiplied by the percentage ability of pharmacists to manage that clinical group. RESULTS: 1623 out of 18,229 (9%) attendees, from 45 of the 48 sites, were children aged from 0 to 16 years of age (median 8 yrs, range 0-16), 749 were female and 874 were male. Of the 1623 admissions, 9% of the cases were judged to be suitable for clinical management by a community pharmacist (CP), 4% suitable for a hospital pharmacist independent prescriber (IP), 32% suitable for a hospital independent pharmacist prescriber with additional training (IPT); and the remaining 55% were only suitable for the Medical Team (MT). The most frequent clinical groups and impact index for the attendees were General Medicine=10.78 and orthopaedics=10.60. CONCLUSION: Paediatric patients attending Emergency Departments were judged by pharmacists to be suitable for management outside a hospital setting in approximately 1 in 11 cases, and by hospital independent prescriber pharmacists in 4 in 10 cases. With further training, it was found that the total proportion of cases that could be managed by a pharmacist was 45%. The greatest impact for pharmacist management occurs in general medicine and orthopaedics.