Setting Shari’a standards: On the role, power and spatialities of interlocking Shari’a boards in Islamic financial services

This paper aims to refine earlier research on the geographies of Islamic financial services (IFS) through a study of how cities are being connected through interlocking directorates in Shari’a advisory boards of IFS firms. The relevance of this analysis is discussed against the backdrop of recent critiques of mainstream ‘world cities’ research because of structuralist and universalizing tendencies. By applying a network concept to the relationalities of world cities within financial circuits, we explore the nested city/firm/actor structure behind Shari’a board membership, and reassess the connectivity of cities in the IFS network in terms of the role and spatialities of interlocking Shari’a boards. The results show that Gulf cities, most notably Manama, Dubai and Kuwait City are particularly well-connected, while also mainstay financial centres outside the Middle East, such as London and New York are networked by interlocking board memberships of a global Shari’a elite. The dominant position of Manama is traced back to its role as a standard-setting city for Shari’a-compliant investments, which materializes through the enacted presence of an array of highly interlocked regulatory bodies and mediating elites.     

People and community as constituent parts of hazards: the significance of societal dimensions in hazards analysis

Nature-triggered hazards and disasters have traditionally been treated only from the lens of geophysical and biophysical processes, implying that the root cause of large-scale death and destruction lies in the natural domain rather than in a coupled human–environment system. Conceptually, the physical domain has been seen as discrete and separate from human entities, and solutions were sought in the technological intervention and control of the physical environment—solutions that often ended up being less effective than hoped for and sometimes even counter productive. At all levels, institutions have directed and redirected most of their financial and logistical resources into the search for scientific and engineering solutions without allocating due attention and resources towards the assessment of effects and effectiveness of the applications of such technological outcomes. However, over the last two decades, forceful criticisms of the ‘dominant’ technocratic approach to hazards analysis have appeared in the literature and consequently there has not only been a shift in thinking of causation of disaster loss in terms of human vulnerability, but also newer questions have arisen regarding distinguishing between the ‘physical exposure’ of people to threats and societal vulnerability, and linking them with propensity to hazards loss. Though the vulnerability/resilience paradigm has largely replaced the hazards paradigm within the social sciences and much of the professional emergency and disaster management communities, this shift of thinking has not progressed to much of the physical science community, decision-makers and the public, who have not yet accepted the idea that understanding and using human and societal dimensions is equally or more important than trying to deal and control nature through the use of technology. This special issue is intended to further the idea that the aspects of community and peoples’ power to mitigate, to improve coping mechanisms, to respond effectively, and recover with vigor against the environmental extremes are of paramount conceptual and policy importance.     

壁面局部接触裂隙岩体水流-传热的一种理论模型及计算分析

核废物地质处置、地热开发、石油开采等工程领域都可能涉及稀疏裂隙岩体中的水流-传热过程。现有的裂隙岩体水流-传热理论模型和计算方法基本上都是以平行光滑壁面裂隙模型为基础的,没有考虑裂隙的壁面局部接触对水流、水-岩热交换以及岩体传热的影响。针对粗糙壁面裂隙水流过程,阐述了基于Stokes方程的Reynolds润滑方程及Hele-Shaw裂隙模型,采用MATLAB软件中的PDE工具求解,并与Walsh的等效水力开度公式进行对比;分析壁面局部接触裂隙水流-传热与填充裂隙水流-传热的相似性,提出了瞬时局部热平衡假设的适用条件,并在裂隙局部接触体传热满足Biot数条件的前提下,计算分析裂隙局部接触体与水流之间的局部热平衡时间及其影响因素;在裂隙局部接触体与水流之间满足瞬时热平衡假设的前提下,利用填充裂隙水流-传热的解析解,计算了壁面局部接触裂隙水及两侧岩石的温度分布,并分析了裂隙局部接触面积率、裂隙开度、裂隙水平均流速对岩石温度和裂隙水温度的影响特征,结果表明：（1）在设定条件下,由于裂隙局部接触体与裂隙水流之间的热交换,裂隙水流对其两侧岩石温度的影响范围随接触面积率的增大而减小,裂隙两侧岩石对裂隙水流温度的影响程度随接触面积率的增大而增大;（2）裂隙开度和裂隙水流速对岩石温度和裂隙水温度的影响方式的影响是一致的,即由于裂隙水流量随裂隙开度和裂隙水流速的增大而增大,裂隙水流对其两侧岩石温度的影响范围随裂隙开度和裂隙水流速的增大而增大,裂隙两侧岩石对裂隙水流温度的影响程度随裂隙开度和裂隙水流速的增大而减小。