Islamic Accounting & Financial Reporting Assignment

Islamic Accounting & Financial Reporting - Assignment Example The risks towards one’s life, wealth and health are growing as numbers of incidents and thefts are growing in all parts of the world but these threats are more severe in the case of Islamic countries where terrorism and unlawfulness is rising all the time (Lapidus, 1996). The whole idea behind Islamic Takaful insurance is to legalize and Islamize the notion of insurance (Maysami & Williams, 2006). The conceptual framework of Takaful insurance is not a new one because Prophet Mohammad had implemented it fourteen centuries ago. However, the featured concept is based on mutual cooperation of all the policyholders (Wahab, Lewis, & Hassan, 2007). The funds are gathered and then deserving policyholder is paid by all others so that he or she can get through a rough time. The responsibility of each policyholder to pay the suffering partner is found to be stemming from ethics and humanity. No legal measures are taken in order to bind policyholders to help each other. The Islamic teachi ngs promote charity and genuine concern for others and the emphasis on the need to assist those Muslims who are going through rough times increase manifold in Islamic teachings and Quran. The policyholders usually do not help those partners who did not help them in the difficult period of life and it is also considered totally acceptable by Muslim Scholars as human relations are based on rule of reciprocity. The Takaful insurance challenges the presence of interest which according to teachings of Islam promotes exploitation and social inequality in the society. Moreover, it is imperative to note that Takaful insurance is not a very powerful tool of moneymaking right now and therefore, the companies engaged in this business have to get themselves ensured with other conventional service providers in order to remain afloat in the industry. Additionally, most of the Muslim capitalists do not consider the notion of Takaful insurance viable in nature because according to them, it ignores

Article review(Replanting the Brain's Forest. ) Essay

Article review(Replanting the Brain's Forest. ) - Essay Example The processes of replacing the cells otherwise believed before by scientists to have been gone forever breathe life into a new field of scientific research. The 1990s was a pivotal point in stem cell research when neuroscientists delved on a more sophisticated application of the procedure. By grafting fetal brain tissue directly to the diseased brain, the experiment hoped to substitute the dead neurons with the new artificial ones. The results, however, were disappointing. The article then goes on to elaborate the new take of scientists to improve on the process by growing neurons in the laboratory and then injecting them directly to the person’s brain. This, the author again underlines, may not be used as a conventional therapy within the next two decades as believed by many experts (Jabr para. 2). Stem cell therapy has a wide range that is not only limited to the brain. In order to delineate the scope of the article, its application to the treatment of neurodegenerative dise ases such as traumatic brain injuries, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease were the main concentration of the article. Parkinson’s disease published the most significant results. ... The distance became the main problem in this research and to address this problem, subsequent researchers grafted directly to the striatum which yielded better results. The same experiment was conducted with monkeys and the same progress in motor functions was seen with normative dopamine levels than before. This is believed by to be attributable to inherent growth factors in the striatum (Jabr para 4-5). Research in Sweden in the 1990s propelled further research as adopted in the United States and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). They implemented two focus groups on the trials, with one receiving transplant and another undergoing a sham surgery. Similar to the previous experiments, the results were disappointing as there was no significant development in both groups. Unsurprisingly, there are differences of opinion on the failure of the experiments. Andres Bjorklund argues that this is because the researchers set unreasonably high expectations at an inconsiderably short amount of time. In fact, in a follow up study it has been found that some patients who had received grafted cells had progressed two years and four years after the NIH conducted study (Jabr para 6-7). The future seems to be hopeful in stem cell therapy for neurodegenerative diseases. Lorenz Studer is providing new benchmark by developing a standardized way of transferring fetal tissue through closely monitoring the growth if neurons in the laboratory. Trial is expected to be conducted to humans within the next three to four years (Jabr para. 8). This is seen to be the future for Parkinson’s and if the results will prove to be considerably