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Islamic banking was developed to serve two objectives: to replace interest-based loan system with profit and loss sharing investment modes and to promote equity in resource allocation. The first objective is called procedural whereas the second one is termed consequential. Scholars have been debating about the success of Islamic banking in achieving these objectives. This paper aims to develop an index for measuring the extent of convergence between theory and practice of Islamic banking.

For measuring the procedural and consequential convergence between objectives and practice of Islamic banking, the paper derives a set of indicators from the celebrated theory of Islamic banking and then develops the methodology of ranking all banks in terms of those indicators.

The paper provides ranking of Islamic banks in Pakistan in the light of this index. The results indicate that none of the Islamic banks in Pakistan has been doing good enough to achieve the convergence, instead they are moving in the opposite direction over time.

Using the methodology developed in this paper, universal ranking of Islamic banks may be issued every year.

Scholars have proposed some indices for measuring the performance of Islamic banking. There are two basic problems with these proposed measures: they do not directly compare the performance of Islamic banking against its stated objectives and they naively use an additive form of index without explaining the reason for this choice, i.e. as to what are the desirable characteristics which their preferred mathematical form of index serves. The index proposed in this paper attempts to overcome these shortcomings.

This study focuses on country branding indices. The main purpose of this study is to build an objective country brand strength index using secondary data. The new index, the Modified Country Brand Strength Index (MCBSI), builds on Fetscherin's (2010) Country Brand Strength Index (CBSI) but uses more rigorous methods and design to create a complementary index to be used together with the survey-based Anholt–GfK Nation Brands Index (NBI). The MCBSI also utilized human development, which is an important dimension of country brands not captured by CBSI.

The MCBSI addresses three significant limitations of the CBSI by using an alternative methodology in constructing the index: specifically, it uses weights for the dimensions, longitudinal data, and relative values by dividing each factor by its cross-country maximum.

Our index ranks 131 countries based on the strength of their country brand. A stronger correlation was found between the MCBSI and NBI than between the CBSI and NBI.

Our contribution has strong implications for both policymakers and academic researchers as it provides a tool for assessing the strength of country brands through accurate but less costly data compared to primary data collected by consultancies for country brand strength indices. The MCBSI informs country brand managers regarding how well their country brand performs across a range of critical dimensions, including export, tourism, foreign direct investments, immigration, government environment and human development.

This study contributes to the emerging academic literature on country brand indices. Currently, there is a lack of objective measurement instruments for assessing country brands. The MCBSI is designed for this purpose to complement the NBI by measuring country brands with objective secondary data. Viewed together, the NBI and our index overcome the obvious shortcomings inherent in each method by providing objective, factual data on country brand equity while providing insight into how people socially construct and evaluate nation brands.

The use of power sectionalizers in electric power distribution networks as disconnecting devices for optimum network configuration is indispensable. Major reasons to use sectionalizers, here manual sectionalizers, is their lower installation and operating prices compared to other types of disconnecting devices and that most of conventional realistic electric power distribution systems are still using manual sectionalizers due to their ease of procurement. However, in case of failure for these switches, power supply interruptions are unavoidable unless optimum solutions are used for configuration (and possibly reconfiguration) of sectionalizers. Thus, in this research, binary exchange market algorithm (BEMA) as a novel evolutionary metaheuristic is used to meet the maximized customer satisfaction by optimized configuration of sectionalizers within electric power distribution networks in the presence of distributed generations (DGs). To solve the problem, BEMA is used on sectionalizing switch placement problem, which has only two open and close (0/1) states. A novel multi-objective optimization problem has been formulated as a function of two aspects, namely, improved reliability index (for customer benefit) and minimized sectionalizing switch costs (for utility benefits). Simulations are carried out in three different case studies to validate the effectiveness of the BEMA both in theory and practice: Standard IEEE 33-bus test system, practical feeder-8 of MeshkinShahr Town’s electric power distribution network in northwest of Iran; and Roy Billinton test system Bus 4 (RBTS-Bus 4). The obtained results are compared with those of the previously validated ant colony optimization (ACO) technique in RBTS-Bus 4.

The optimum configuration of sectionalizers in the presence of DGs has been formulated as a multi-objective function consisting of two conflicting objectives. First objective is to improve the power distribution network reliability indices. Second objective is to fulfill the first objective with a minimized sectionalizing switch cost. The latter is probably obtained by reducing the number of installed sectionalizers. The obtained results by BEMA have been compared with those of ACO technique.

In this paper, optimal configuration of sectionalizers has been performed based on a multiobjective function by binary exchange market algorithm. By simulations carried out on two standards and one practical test systems, the proposed algorithm effectiveness was confirmed and the obtained results were compared to ACO algorithm. Changing weighting factors shows that better satisfaction can be obtained when difference between the weighting factors is relatively greater. In other words, the reliability membership function is more than switch cost membership, and thus, if the values of two weighting factors are close enough, the satisfaction level reduces. The number of installed sectionalizing switches by BEMA and ACO techniques in different scenarios were performed.

Proposal of a novel multi-objective function for finding optimal location of sectionalizers in the presence of DGs with binary exchange market algorithm whose merit over the other heuristics is to consider all the problem specifications only in one multi-objective function. Despite previously reported works that have used various high-priced protective devices for achieving the enhanced reliability this research only utilizes inexpensive manual sectionalizers with the least possible cost in the presence of DGs. Two standard test cases IEEE 33-bus test system and RBTS-Bus 4 and one realistic test case feeder-8 of MeshkinShahr Town power distribution network in northwest of Iran are used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique in theory and real-world applications. Thus, utilities may take the advantage of the proposed method for configuration of sectionalizers in their own local power distribution systems throughout the country.

Night lighting reflects the prosperous development of economic and the increasingly rich and colorful cultural life. Currently, various technical standards, protocols and management specifications have been developed to build a safe, comfortable and economical lighting environment. However, prevailing evaluation systems focus on objective indexes of illumination and have ignored environmental characteristics and subjective feelings and lacked consideration of regional culture, economic benefit, management and maintenance. In this context, a lighting evaluation system combining subjective and objective is proposed for the first time in this study to explore approaches to guide the development of a healthy and comfortable urban night-time environment.

Existing research and relevant lighting standards are analyzed and an evaluation model with a logical hierarchy is constructed by combining with the evaluation theory that is set based on people and the environment. The index weights were scientifically determined on the basis of the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. The rationality and validity of the proposed evaluation system is verified in accordance with field projects and case studies.

Taking into account traditional and cultural factors, the evaluation model established has an acceptable accuracy. Evaluation based on subjective-objective combination can provide a scientific basis for the management and optimization of night lighting.

The proposed evaluation system can serve as a guiding reference for other areas of cultural identity and esthetic perspective.

Interrupting work continuity provides a way to improve some project performance, but unexpected and harmful interruptions may impede the implementation. This paper aims to mitigate the negative impact caused by work continuity uncertainty based on the notion of robustness.

This paper develops a float-based robustness measurement method for the work continuity uncertainty in repetitive projects. A multi-objective optimization model is formulated to generate a schedule that achieves a balance between crew numbers and robustness. This model is solved using two modules: optimization module and decision-making module. The Monte Carlo simulation is designed to validate the effectiveness of the generated schedule.

The results confirmed that it is necessary to consider the robustness as an essential factor when scheduling a repetitive project with uncertainty. Project managers may develop a schedule that is subject to delays if they only make decisions according to the results of the deadline satisfaction problem. The Monte Carlo simulation validated that an appropriate way to measure robustness is conducive to generating a schedule that can avoid unnecessary delay, compared to the schedule generated by the traditional model.

Available studies assume that the work continuity is constant, but it cannot always be maintained when affected by uncertainty. This paper regards the work continuity as a new type of uncertainty factor and investigates how to mitigate its negative effects. The proposed float-based robustness measurement can measure the ability of a schedule to absorb unpredictable and harmful interruptions, and the proposed multi-objective scheduling model provides a way to incorporate the uncertainty into a schedule.

Regional competitiveness refers to the capacity of a region to manage its resources and competencies to increase the well-being of its people. Measuring regional competitiveness is, thus, a major consideration for policymakers, businesses and the academic community in their endeavour to improve the same. This paper aims to demonstrate a novel way to calculate the regional competitiveness index under a two-stage objective general index (OGI) framework.

The authors compute the regional competitiveness index under a two-stage OGI framework. In the first stage, they aggregate the sub-factor level information into a factor level index; in the second stage, they use the factor level index to obtain a regional competitiveness index.

The authors discuss the properties of the proposed index in detail. They further analyse five periods of regional competitiveness of Peru spanning the period 2008-2015. Among others, the results reveal the existence of the resource curse of the mining regions of Peru.

The paper is a contribution to the practical measurement of competitiveness.

The calculation of a regional competitiveness index is vital for improving the competitiveness of the countries and for reducing regional inequalities.

When compared to the existent methods available in the literature, the advantage of the proposed method resides in the fact that the derived index has a positive correlation with the factor-level indices and the factor-level indices have a positive correlation with the sub-factor-level information.

Taking the discipline construction in colleges and universities as the application background, based on the research on data mining technology and decision support system technology, the data generated by university management information system are effectively utilized. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Based on the Beijing Key Discipline Information Platform as the data source, the decision tree algorithm of data mining is studied. On the basis of decision tree C4.5, the Bayesian theory is applied to the post-pruning operation of the decision tree.

A decision tree post-pruning algorithm based on the Bayesian theory is studied and put forward in order to simplify the decision tree, which improves the generalization ability of the whole algorithm. Finally, the algorithm is used to build the prediction model of key disciplines. Combined with the decision support system architecture, data warehouse and the data mining algorithm constructed by university discipline, based on J2EE standard enterprise system specification, MVC model is applied. Moreover, a prototype system of decision support system for discipline construction in colleges and universities with browser/server (B/S) structure is completed and implemented.

A decision tree post-pruning algorithm based on the Bayesian theory is studied and put forward in order to simplify the decision tree, which improves the generalization ability of the whole algorithm. Finally, the algorithm is used to build the prediction model of key disciplines. Combined with the decision support system architecture, data warehouse and the data mining algorithm constructed by university discipline, based on J2EE standard enterprise system specification, MVC model is applied. Moreover, a prototype system of decision support system for discipline construction in colleges and universities with B/S structure is completed and implemented.

Clothing patterns play a dominant role in costume design and have become an important link in the perception of costume art. Conventional clothing patterns design relies on experienced designers. Although the quality of clothing patterns is very high on conventional design, the input time and output amount ratio is relative low for conventional design. In order to break through the bottleneck of conventional clothing patterns design, this paper proposes a novel way based on generative adversarial network (GAN) model for automatic clothing patterns generation, which not only reduces the dependence of experienced designer, but also improve the input-output ratio.

In view of the fact that clothing patterns have high requirements for global artistic perception and local texture details, this paper improves the conventional GAN model from two aspects: a multi-scales discriminators strategy is introduced to deal with the local texture details; and the self-attention mechanism is introduced to improve the global artistic perception. Therefore, the improved GAN called multi-scales self-attention improved generative adversarial network (MS-SA-GAN) model, which is used for high resolution clothing patterns generation.

To verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed MS-SA-GAN model, a crawler is designed to acquire standard clothing patterns dataset from Baidu pictures, and a comparative experiment is conducted on our designed clothing patterns dataset. In experiments, we have adjusted different parameters of the proposed MS-SA-GAN model, and compared the global artistic perception and local texture details of the generated clothing patterns.

Experimental results have shown that the clothing patterns generated by the proposed MS-SA-GAN model are superior to the conventional algorithms in some local texture detail indexes. In addition, a group of clothing design professionals is invited to evaluate the global artistic perception through a valence-arousal scale. The scale results have shown that the proposed MS-SA-GAN model achieves a better global art perception.

The purpose of this paper is to produce a general Balanced Scorecard (BSC) model that is designed and delimited for managing research and development (R&D) activities.

A methodology based on the validity of content of an instrument of measurement, within the analytical framework of the validation of scales or constructs was employed.

The BSC model for R&D developed in this study has been subject to testing with recognised experts in management and in R&D. It has enabled a proposal to be put forward in respect of those indicators that best define the factors related to organisational effectiveness in the achievement of the strategic objectives set by companies, and to inter‐relate them and group them under five broad perspectives of the BSC.

The BSC will be validated as a construct in future research.

The result is the design of a scale of measurement that ranks the empirical indicators under the perspectives of the BSC; for the measurement of results, this instrument will provide unique values that group all the previous indicators in a single scale of measurement.

No studies dealing with the content validation of a BSC have been found in the literature on innovation.

The present article aims to evaluate the performance of ten domestic balanced mutual funds operating in the Greek financial market over the period 1/1/1995‐31/12/1998. In doing so, the sample mutual funds were ranked on the basis of their return, total risk, coefficient of variation, systematic risk, and the techniques of Treynor, Sharpe and Jensen. The ten mutual funds achieved lower return than the General Index of the Athens Stock Exchange (ASE). However, the mutual funds achieved satisfactory return in relation to the total and systematic risk undertaken. The sample mutual funds followed defensive investment policy that was in line with their objectives. The General Index of the ASE appeared to be a close approximation of the market portfolio. To some extent the ranking of the mutual funds varied among the techniques of Treynor, Sharpe and Jensen, although certain mutual funds were ranked in the same order regardless of the technique used. According to Jensen, seven mutual funds had superior performance, while the remaining three demonstrated poor performance.