Purpose This paper aims to provide a comparative study of the Islamic versus conventional banking sector risk by using market data generated from the sample of publicly listed Islamic and conventional banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Design/methodology/approach The authors introduce a market-based measure of bank stress and test this indicator against the Tier 1 Capital Ratio using Granger causality tests. Findings The authors find that the market-based measure is a leading indicator of banking stress when compared to the accounting-based Tier 1 ratio and thus is relevant to the Basel regulation’s Pillar 3. Research limitations/implications This paper only looks at Islamic vs conventional banks in the Gulf region, and the authors would like to extend this analysis to a broader range of financial institutions, especially in the European and North American markets. Social implications Developing a measure that signals bank stress ahead of typically used measures can help regulators, bank management and investors identify oncoming problems and issues before these become too big to manage. Originality/value The results from this analysis provides insight into the offsetting impact from two drivers (beta and book-to-market ratio) of the cost of equity capital for the conventional vs Islamic banking sectors.

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Paper based lateral flow systems are widely used biosensor platforms to detect biomolecules in a liquid sample. Proteins, bacteria, oligonucleotides, and nanoparticles were investigated in the literature. In this work we designed a magnetic platform including dual magnets and tested the flow of micron size immunomagnetic particles alone and when loaded with cells on two different types of papers. The wetting conditions of the paper and the applied external magnetic field are the two dominant factors affecting the particle and cell transport in paper. The images recorded with a cell phone, or with a bright field optical microscope were analyzed to measure the flow of particles and cells. The effect of wetting conditions and magnetic force were measured, and it was shown that in the worst case 90% of the introduced cells reached to the edge of the paper. The paper based magnetophoretic lateral flow systems can be used for cell assays.

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