Banks’ Efficiency and Productivity Analysis Using the Hicks-Moorsteen Approach: A Case Study of Iran

This study is the first to use the Hicks-Moorsteen TFP index developed by O’Donnell (2008,2009, 2010c) to analyse efficiency and productivity changes in the banking system. The advantage of this approach over the popular Malmquist productivity index is that it is free from any assumptions concerning firm optimising behaviour, the structure of markets, or returns to scale. The effects of Iranian government regulations launched in 2005 on the Iranian banking industry are investigated through an analysis of performance over the period 2003-2008 assuming variable returns to scale. The results obtained show that although the Iranian banking industry has been inefficient over the entire period of the study, the industry’s technical efficiency level - which had improved over the period 2003-2006 - deteriorated considerably after the regulatory changes were introduced. The industry experienced its highest negative efficiency growth in 2006 which was 43% and became more mix inefficient after 2005, with a considerably negative productivity change after 2007. Overall, changes of production possibility set and scale efficiency changes exerted dominant effects on productivity changes.Regulation, Productivity, Banking, Data envelopment analysis, Malmquist index,Hicks-Moorsteen index

Shear design of HSC beams with combination of links and horizontal web steel

The existing recommendations in Eurocode 2 and the British Code of Practice for the shear design of beams are derived from research conducted essentially on normal-strength concrete (NSC) with cube strengths up to 50 MPa, and it was found that the shear strengths of high-strength concrete (HSC) members made with limestone aggregate are below the characteristic resistances of identical NSC members. Previous experimental tests have also shown that significant differences exist in the angle of crack of shear failure of NSC and HSC. This paper presents data from five beam tests, which demonstrate that HSC with limestone aggregate has a reduced shear strength compared with NSC made with gravel and thus shows a gap in knowledge in the design approach to shear resistance of HSC beams. Previous investigations have suggested that horizontal web steels can contribute to the overall shear resistance of a reinforced concrete member in conjunction with the other constituents, concrete, tension and shear steel. The paper also presents data from tests on 11 beam tests and shows that the shear resistance of HSC beams is highly dependent on dowel action resulting from horizontal web bars positioned at the centre of the depth of the beam. Past attempts to quantify this dowel action are investigated and an improved design rule is proposed

Nomadologic Ulysses: pounding overseas

A Deleuzian reading of Ezra Pound's the Gypsy and Ulysses by James Joyce is put into practice to link the schizophrenic concept of "nomadology", with diaspora, mysticism, logic, multilingualism, nostalgic inclination towards "change", purgatorial ontology of Adam and Eve before the Fall, and a Protean vision to focus on "capacity" as the sine qua non of "change"

Philosophic (in)felicity: protean narrativity

Philosophic contingency embedded in James Joyce's avant-garde novel, ranging from Aristotelian notion of mimesis to the possibility of a Marxian reading, stemming from Hegel's dialectic, added to the linguistic pragmatics, pave the way to focus on the process of realization and mental performance by a leading contemporary philosopher of analytic philosophy, J.L. Austin, as an epistemological triggering in the course of implication through a narrative, here Proteus, teleologically speaking, resulting a meta-utterance in a broader scale, much far from constative type, a metaphorical narration, elaborating on cultural agency, while paraphrasing the language-based relativity of collective identity and complexity of Austin’s speech act theory, in terms of (in)felicitous conditions, rooted in the success of the communicative intention of the narrator, here Stephen Dedalus, maybe the most wonderful advanced guard of narratology in interior monologue

An exordium to a promise

James Joyce’s fine shades of philosophy have been neglected in recent times, especially when it comes to fill either epistemological or ontological lacuna in taxonomy as to whereabouts of his canon. Epistemology and ontology are a couple of the core areas of philosophy. Since mirroring cognitive and post-cognitive questions in postmodern literature may invite a rereading of potential authors, a historiography of "theory of knowledge" and ontological nuances is reviewed in this paper not to represent literary examples, but to mind a hiatus in descriptive poetics. The idea is that Ulysses and Finnegans Wake gesture differently in their philosophical "dominance". Analyzing the philosophical borders of the realm, it is sought to consult with literary critics beside canonical authors who dissected their mind in epistemology just to propound an initial disquisition about a novelist who never wanted his works to be prescribed by simple bounds due to their literary nature. This paper may be useful to those who pursue any link between literature and philosophy, specifically those who are willing to know more about postmodernist philosophical concerns of literature

Phenomenologic chippendale chair: Stephen's nightmare

James Joyce's hermeneutics of narrative, Husserlian scholars, fictitious theory of history by Stephen Dedalus in Ulysses, interpretation in both terms of modes and meaning, exploration of the implication of passive intentionality, an "anonymity" seeking for its ontological root, a stoppage on the notion of "as if of", "noema" and ‘noesis' in their technical use, "natürliche Einstellung" and a handful of other issues are all cited here by Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur and others just to shed more light on findings, insights, observations and conclusions in social and cognitive sciences, by the help of a static and genetic analysis of some key notions like "intentionality and consciousness" from both historical and systematic perspectives, ranging from Dr. Johnson on Shakespeare to Husserl's guidelines in phenomenology

Plant protein hydrolysates as a supplement for medium of human skin fibroblast 1184 cell culture

Medium is the most important item in cell culture. Each medium consists of two main parts which are a basal medium and serum. The main source of the serum is come from an animal blood. The serum from animal blood has many disadvantages such as viral contaminations. Moreover, serum is very expensive. Serum-free media is the best alternative in solving this problem. Unfortunately, serum-free medium is not sufficient for the cell growth. Thus, some supplements must be added to serum-free medium. One of the most important sources of supplements is from plants which could reduce the cost. In this study different plant protein hydrolysates from soy, sesame, Aloe vera, rice and wheat have been tested against Human Skin Fibroblast (HSF) 1184. All protein hydrolysates were prepared through enzymatic hydrolysis using commercial enzymes of non-animal origin. These hydrolysates were characterized according to their solubility and peptide size. Different growth behaviours of HSF 1184 cells were observed when these hydrolysates were added in DMEM with and without Fetal Bovine Serum (FBS). Hydrolysates from exopeptidase enzymes such as Flavourzyme gave negative effect on HSF 1184 cell culture, while hydrolysates from endopeptidase enzymes were supplementary for HSF 1184 cell culture. Since plant proteins do not have all the necessary amino acids for HSF 1184 cell culture growth, they cannot be solely substituted with FBS. Depending on the enzyme used, the supplementation with hydrolysates corresponding to a high degree of hydrolysis and composition of peptides with small molecular size, led to different maximal cell density. This indicates the importance of enzyme specificity and consequently the nature of the released peptides. In conclusion, the best plant protein hydrolysates for supplementation into the complete medium for HSF 1184 growth were soy and Aloe vera which were hydrolysed by Alcalase

Differential effects of early-life seizures on neuronal inhibition in the hippocampus of seizure-prone and seizure-resistant rats

The aim of this study is to investigate the long-term physiological consequences of early-life seizures in rats of different genetic backgrounds. Rats bred to be prone (Fast) or resistant (Slow) to amygdala kindling were induced with status epilepticus (SE) on postnatal day (PND) 10 by injecting 3 mg/kg i.p. kainic acid; SE consisted of seizures for 2 h, including stage 5 seizures (lying down with four limb tonic-clonic convulsions). Littermates injected with the same volume of saline i.p. served as controls. On PND 40-55, population spikes (PSs) were recorded at the CA1 pyramidal cell layer in hippocampal slices in vitro following paired-pulse stimulation of the stratum radiatum. As compared to the saline-injected control Fast rats, seizure Fast rats showed a larger paired-pulse index (PPI = ratio of second PS to first PS) at 4 x threshold stimulus intensity, and 20-100 ms interpulse interval (IPI) (repeated measures ANOVA,