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IntroductionScientific documentation of the qualitative forest vegetation parameters of a biogeographical area provides baseline information to guide conservation strategies and design policies for biodiversity management regulations.MethodsWe present one of the most comprehensive qualitative vegetation analyses to evaluate the entire structure and function of an ecosystem in the remote northern part of the Kashmir Himalaya, India. Several multivariate ecological community analyses were conducted after determining the presence of plant species in the various habitats using a random sampling technique.ResultsIn total, 155 plant species belonging to 120 genera and 49 families occurred in the area. Asteraceae was the largest family (12% of plant species) followed by Rosaceae (11%). The patterns of species distribution across families were uneven, with 50% of the species belonging to only 7 families, and 23 families being monotypic. In terms of functional groups, the herbaceous growth form dominated. Therophytes were the dominant life form, indicating that the vegetation was disturbed. According to the phytogeographical research, 65% of the species documented in the study area were native, 15% were invasive, 14% naturalized, and 5% being casual. The majority (30%) of exotic species were reported along roadsides. Of all the species found, 39% grew in their natural habitats, such as forests, and 11% were scattered along roadsides. Plant species were grouped in five different clusters based on their floristic similarity. According to the estimated diversity indices, natural forest has the greatest values for Shannon’s and Simpson’s index. We found that the study area serves as the natural habitat for several significant, endangered medicinal plants, including Arnebia benthamii, Bergenia ciliata, Delphinium roylei, Gentiana kurroo, Phytolacca acinosa, Saussurea costus, and Trillium govanianum. Therefore, we recommend that human intervention in natural regeneration efforts be prioritized in these habitats to increase the population of these species.ConclusionExamining species features from the perspective of functional groups contributes to our understanding of the ecological aspects of the flora. It may also be useful in developing management plans to ensure long-term management of forest landscapes in this remote Himalayan region.

Dermatological ailments are a major health problem, especially when related to human immune deficiency syndrome and acquired immune deficiency. The goal of this study was to identify the medicinal plants used by the indigenous peoples of the Northwestern Himalayas to treat dermatological diseases. Several field trips were conducted in the spring and summer seasons of 2020–2021 to collect the plants of dermatological value and information about their use through open-ended semi-structured interviews (n = 53) and group discussions (n = 33). The current investigation found 64 ethnomedicinal plants belonging to 34 families commonly used to treat a variety of dermatological ailments. The main growth form was herbs (80%), followed by trees (8%) and ferns (6%). It was found that leaves (51%) were the most commonly used plant part, followed by roots and the whole plant. Wound healing was the most dominant application, with 18 plant species used, followed by skin burns cured by 11 plant species and skin boils by eight plant species. Out of the total (18%) of medicinal plants with cosmetic uses, i.e., roots of Jurinea dolomiaea, Rheum webbianum, and Rheum spiciforme were crushed into powder and mixed with turmeric, and the paste is applied topically for glowing skin. Among the various preparation methods, paste (38%) was the most common way of preparation, followed by poultice (29%) and infusion (9%). Between ethnic groups, the maximum homogeneity was between Gujjar and Bakarwal ethnic groups (23 species, 36%), followed by Gujjars and Kashmiri (14 species, 22%). Bakarwals and Gujjar people live in the same geographical location, and they graze their animals in pastures, practice extensive transhumance pastoralism, and pass through different ecological landscapes, thus having sufficient experiences with certain plants and retaining more knowledge. The species identified with the highest utilization based on the number of citations and use value included Ficus carica, Cichorium intybus, Euphorbia wallichii, Pinus wallichiana, Plantago major, Jurinea dolomiaea, and Artemisia absinthium. The findings of this study demonstrate that people who reside in the Northwestern Himalayas region still rely on medicinal plants.

Weeds are a major threat to agriculture and horticulture cropping systems that reduce yield. Weeds have a better ability to compete for resources compared to the main crops of various agro-ecosystems and act as a major impediment in reducing overall yield. They often act as energy drains in the managed agroecosystems. We studied weed infestation for five different agro-ecosystems in the part of Indian Western Himalayas represented by paddy, maize, mustard, apple and vegetable orchards. Systematic random sampling was done to record flowering phenology and diversity of weeds during the assessment period 2015–2020. We recorded 59 weed species, taxonomically distributed among 50 genera in 24 families. The Asteraceae family has the most species (15% species), followed by Poaceae (14% species), and Brassicaceae (12% species). The Therophytes were the dominant life form followed by Hemicryptophytes. The majority of the weeds were shown to be at their most blooming in the summer (predominantly from June to July). The Shannon index based diversity of weeds ranged from 2.307–3.325 for the different agro-ecosystems. The highest number of weeds was in the horticulture systems (apple > vegetable) followed by agriculture fields (maize > paddy > mustard). Agriculture and horticulture cropping systems were distinguished using indicator species analysis, which was supported by high and significant indicator values for a number of species. Persicaria hydropiper, Cynodon dactylon, Poa annua, Stellaria media, and Rorippa palustris had the highest indicator value in agriculture cropping systems, while Trifolium repens, Phleum pratense, and Trifolium pratense had the highest indicator value in horticulture cropping systems. We found that eleven weed species were unique to apple gardens followed by nine in maize, four in vegetables, two in mustard and one in paddy fields. Spatial turnover (βsim) and nestedness-resultant components (βsne) of species dissimilarity revealed dissimilarity lower than 50% among the five cropping systems. The study is expected to assist in formulating an appropriate management strategy for the control of weed infestation in the study region.

Islamic banking is gradually emerging everywhere in the world. Half a century ago, Islamic banking was just a concept contained in books only, but today it is a success story not only in Muslim countries of Middle East but even in the UK and the USA. As customer satisfaction is the compulsory element of every kind of business so Islamic banking also has to pay more attention towards customer satisfaction. Modern banking system of Saudi Arabia is unique due to political and technological environment of this country. Both conventional and Islamic banks are working together in this country to maximize the customer satisfaction and profit margin. Customers have a choice to switch either type of banking (Islamic to conventional or conventional to Islamic); this has created a challenge for banks. To retain and attract the customers, banks have to adopt different services and strategies. In the present study, the level of customer satisfaction in both conventional and Islamic banks is measured through comparative study. Data were collected through a well-designed questionnaire on Likert’s five point scale from both Islamic and conventional banks of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected from four regions (Riyadh, Dammam, Makkah and Madinah) with the intention to represent the whole Saudi Arabia. After using independent samples t-test and one way ANOVA, it has been found that customers are equally satisfied with both types of banks and also no difference of customer satisfaction was found from different regions. This is a good sign for Islamic banking as it is competing with a conventional banking system which has its long history. At the end suggestions for developing Islamic banking in Saudi Arabia were presented.

Islamic finance has faced a two-fold criticism from scholars; viz. constructive criticism and destructive criticism. Majority of the scholars criticize it with the intention to improve its overall development, but some scholars are more negative in their criticism. This paper proposes that Islamic banks (a component of Islamic finance) are not charitable institutions, but are the intermediary institutions that take care of investors’ expectations to keep the time value and return to their investments intact with the market fluctuations. The purpose of this paper is to provide better insight about Islamic finance so as to further improve this industry to achieve its long term goals and serve the society better. The paper also attempts to answer some of the common allegations imposed by scholars towards Islamic finance.

Financing is an important component in any project. Without finance, it is impossible to run any project as it is considered the lifeblood of the business. But due to the presence of predetermined rate of interest, economists have provided alternative approach for financing the project. In this paper a model using Profit and Loss Sharing (PLS) system and comparison of it with the conventional financing model is developed. Thrust in this paper is towards establishing a new theoretical reasoning why PLS system is less frequently used in Islamic banking in terms of net worth of the borrower. It has been argued that agency problem like moral hazard is still acute in PLS system. An idea has been discuss to solve this problem using game theoretic tool.

The main purpose of the paper is to study the publishing trends of the Open Access (OA) journals in the field of education, available in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). An online survey was conducted for the collection of data and a quantitative method was applied for data analysis. Data was collected from 567 education journals during the month of February 2013. They were later presented in tabular forms and analysed using quantitative techniques to reveal findings, in accordance with the desired objectives. The findings show that a maximum number of journals (567) listed in the DOAJ is published in education; from the United States (120, i.e., 21.16 per cent); and during the first decade (2001-10) of the 21st century (393, i.e., 69.31 per cent). The linguistic assessment shows that the OA education journals are published in 32 different languages and English is the principal language adopted by the 75.84 per cent (430) of journals. The results also reveal that the majority of the education journals (496, i.e., 87.48 per cent) does not charge any publication fee from the authors and still 100 per cent of them have maintained their continuity. The study is limited to the DOAJ only and the World Wide Web (www) was not explored. Hence, the findings should be studied with caution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]