There has been a rapid increase in the interest in the study of Islamic finance, resulting in a dramatic rise in financing since the beginning of the century. By the end of 2017 global industry assets had reached $2.4 trillion and were forecasted to reach $3.2 trillion by 2020, despite historic challenges to Islam itself at the same time. This collection of chapters provides key theoretical, empirical, and policy insights into Islamic finance from an overall complex financial and economic systems perspective. Within the complex financial and economic systems framework, this book addresses questions such as how to conceptualize Islamic financial institutions in a nonlinear general equilibrium system, how to promote Islamic Finance in Africa, how "Islamic" is Islamic finance, and how it affects price stability, among other topics. The book provides case studies in Africa and Asia, addresses the subject in a structural financial CGE model, demonstrates the development impact of Islamic finance, and presents an Islamic version of the Iceland Plan for Monetary Reform.

In recent decades, more women around the world have taken the opportunity to enter the market, join the workforce, and start their own entrepreneurial ventures. These changes have had a strong impact on market demographics. Particularly within the tourism industry, it is important to investigate the behavior, motivations, experiences, and needs of women as travelers, employees, and entrepreneurs. Women's Empowerment Within the Tourism Industry offers a conversant and comprehensive overview of the themes and concepts of women as tourists, employees, and entrepreneurs in tourism. Providing interdisciplinary insights from leading international researchers and academicians, this book makes a critical contribution to the knowledge of women's participation within the tourism industry. It discusses the nature of their work and ways in which tourism creates tension between the attitudes and conduct of tourists and the beliefs and behavior of local women. Covering topics such as consumer experience, gender studies, and women's employment, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for business leaders and managers, entrepreneurs, marketers, government officials, students and educators of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

Self-Cleaning of Surfaces and Water Droplet Mobility deals with the self-cleaning of hydrophobic surfaces. Chapters cover the basics of wetting states of fluids and surface characteristics in terms of texture topology and free energy. The self-cleaning aspects of surfaces, such as various synthesizing and fabrication processes are then introduced and discussed, along with environmental dust properties, including elemental compositions, particle sizes and shapes, and their chemo-mechanics characteristics. In addition, mud formation in humid air, as well as ambient and dry mud adhesion on optically transparent surfaces is explored, as is water droplet dynamics on hydrophilic and hydrophobic surfaces, amongst other topics. The book fills the gap between the physical fundamentals of surface energy and texture characteristics for practical applications of surface cleaning and provides a basic understanding of the self-cleaning of surfaces that will be idea for academics, researchers and students.

Heat Transport in Micro- and Nanoscale Thin Films presents aspects and applications of the principle methods of heat transport in relation to nanoscale films. Small-scale parts and thin films are widely used in the electronics industry. However, the drastic change in the thermal conductivity with reducing device size and film thickness modifies the energy transport by heat-carrying phonons in the film. Energy transfer in small-sized devices and thin films deviate from the classical diffusion to radiative transport. This book deals with micro/nano scale heat transfer in small scale devices and the thin films, including interface properties of cross-plane transport. The book fills the gap between applications of the physical fundamentals and energy transport at the micro- and nano scale, which will be valuable for academics, researchers and students in the fields of materials science and energy transport.

In recent decades, more women around the world have taken the opportunity to enter the market, join the workforce, and start their own entrepreneurial ventures. These changes have had a strong impact on market demographics. Particularly within the tourism industry, it is important to investigate the behavior, motivations, experiences, and needs of women as travelers, employees, and entrepreneurs. Women's Empowerment Within the Tourism Industry offers a conversant and comprehensive overview of the themes and concepts of women as tourists, employees, and entrepreneurs in tourism. Providing interdisciplinary insights from leading international researchers and academicians, this book makes a critical contribution to the knowledge of women's participation within the tourism industry. It discusses the nature of their work and ways in which tourism creates tension between the attitudes and conduct of tourists and the beliefs and behavior of local women. Covering topics such as consumer experience, gender studies, and women's employment, this premier reference source is an excellent resource for business leaders and managers, entrepreneurs, marketers, government officials, students and educators of higher education, librarians, researchers, and academicians.

The present research work was conducted in the Biological Control Laboratory, Department of Agricultural Entomology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan, during 2009. The objective of this study was, to enhance the longevity and fecundity of Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae), through improving the artificial diet of its adults. The experiment comprised seven treatments; of which six composed of honey, water and yeast, in a ratio of 1:1:1 and one that of control. The honey used in five of these, was collected from different plant sources, whereas, that employed in the one meant for the inclusion of Vitamin-E, was the common honey. The control treatment, however, comprised the pre-existing standard diet (common honey + water + yeast in 1:1:1 ratio), already being used in the bio-control lab. The experiment was laid out in Complete Randomized Design (CRD) and each treatment was repeated thrice.

Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity describes the motion of particles moving at close to the speed of light. Einstein's theory is now very well established as the correct description of motion of relativistic objects, that is, those traveling at a significant fraction of the speed of light. Einstein replaced the laws of Newton and Galileo with his theory of special relativity which showed how space and time are really related. In this book, we have extensively studied some relativistic transformations based on force and discussed the invariance properties in the light of space and time. We have also investigated that the relativity principle and the Lorentz force law enables us to cancel the Lorentz transformation and its time dilation from the main body of special relativity theory. The applicability of the special theory of relativity for inertial reference systems based on the symmetry of space and time that Lorentz transformation of the special theory of relativity is the only possible relationship between the coordinates and time in inertial reference systems, as well as its findings are requirements imposed by the conditions of the symmetry of space and time.

In this book, we investigate the issue of the final fate of a gravitationally collapsing massive stars and the associated cosmic censorship problem. When the star is heavier than a few solar masses, it could undergo an endless gravitational collapse without achieving any equilibrium state. This happens when the star has exhausted its internal nuclear fuel which provides the outwards pressure against the inwards pulling gravitational forces. This remains one of the most outstanding open issues (Islam, 1992) in gravitation theory today. We discuss the essential features of spherically symmetric collapse and the final fate of a massive star which undergoes gravitational collapse. It is the spherically symmetric collapse of a homogenous dust cloud, as described by the Oppenheimer-Snyder model (1939), which led to the general concept of trapped surfaces collapsed to singularities. Our objective here is to discuss the above and such other related important questions concerning the global aspects of gravity, and also to discuss some applications of the results which are already available on the global structure of space-time singularity.