Performance of privatised and private firms : empirical evidence from Egypt

Privatisation has been a major political and economic phenomenon over the past few decades, and researchers continue to target it for both theoretical and empirical work. The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the Egyptian experiment concerning its privatisation programme, and to determine whether this programme has affected the performance of privatised firms. Using 15 years of data, which cover the period 1990/1991 to 2004/2005; this thesis empirically investigates three main issues. Firstly, it examines whether the performance of privatised firms improves following privatisation through comparing pre- and postprivatisation performance in terms of profitability, operating efficiency, output, leverage and level of employment. Secondly, it evaluates the performance changes of privatised Egyptian firms after matching them to control firms (private firms) based on size and industry. Thirdly, it evaluates the impact of the post-privatisation sectoral environment and the pre-privatisation experience on post-privatisation performance. For the first two issues, several statistical techniques, such as parametric t-test, the non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and Mann-Whitney test are performed. The results from this analysis indicate clearly that there are significant increases in both profitability and operating efficiency as well as significant declines in the leverage and employment, but there is no significant change in the output. Furthermore, the results show a significant difference in performance changes between privatised firms and private firms according to most performance measures. As to the third issue, several multi-regressions are used to model the relationship between the post-privatisation performance (as dependent variable) and ownership structure, the performance experience of the privatised firms pre-privatisation, the performance of their counterparts from competitor firms (private firms), and firm size (as independent variables). The results from this analysis demonstrate that the ownership structure really matters and that the performance of privatised firms depends on the degree of state ownership involvement; also, through the passage of time, the competitive environment has a significant impact on most performance measures of privatised firms. As such, this thesis represents the first study in Egypt to evaluate and compare the performance of privatised firms with the performance of their counterparts from private firms. The study contributes to the work on privatisation by comparing the performance changes of privatised firms to those of already private ones, so that the study can determine whether the post-privatisation performance matches that of the private firms. A caveat to the finding of this thesis is that the privatised firms might need a longer period to reflect more fully the impact of the privatisation programme on some of their performance measures.Arab Academy for Science and Technology, Egyp

Predicting user behavior using data profiling and hidden Markov model

Mental health disorders affect many aspects of patient’s lives, including emotions, cognition, and especially behaviors. E-health technology helps to collect information wealth in a non-invasive manner, which represents a promising opportunity to construct health behavior markers. Combining such user behavior data can provide a more comprehensive and contextual view than questionnaire data. Due to behavioral data, we can train machine learning models to understand the data pattern and also use prediction algorithms to know the next state of a person’s behavior. The remaining challenges for this issue are how to apply mathematical formulations to textual datasets and find metadata that aids to identify the person’s life pattern and also predict the next state of his comportment. The main idea of this work is to use a hidden Markov model (HMM) to predict user behavior from social media applications by analyzing and detecting states and symbols from the user behavior dataset. To achieve this goal, we need to analyze and detect the states and symbols from the user behavior dataset, then convert the textual data to mathematical and numerical matrices. Finally, apply the HMM model to predict the hidden user behavior states. We tested our program and identified that the log-likelihood was higher and better when the model fits the data. In any case, the results of the study indicated that the program was suitable for the purpose and yielded valuable data

Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Some New 1,2,3-Triazole Derivatives As Anti-microbial Agents

A series of 1,2,3-triazole derivatives bearing different chemical entities were prepared starting from 2-(4-phenyl-1H-1,2,3-triazol-1-yl)acetohydrazide, compound 2. The purity of all new compounds was checked by TLC and elucidation of their structures was confirmed by IR, 1H and 13C NMR along with High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (HRMS). All the target compounds were evaluated for their possible antimicrobial activity. Most of the tested compounds showed moderate to good antibacterial activity against most of the bacterial strains used in comparison with ciprofloxacin as a reference drug. The most active compounds were 4a, 9a, 9b, and 9f. Results of antifungal activity revealed that most of the tested compounds showed a good antifungal activity in comparison to fluconazole as a reference drug. Compounds 4a, 9c, 9d and 9f were the most active ones

Robustness of Firm-Specific and Macroeconomic Determinants of Exploration Investments: Implications from Egyptian Oil & Gas Industry

The uncertainty that surrounds Oil and Gas exploration environments call for an examination at different angles. In terms of robustness, this study focuses on three performance measurements: (a) the amount of exploration investments, (b) the growth rate of exploration investments and (c) the Value at Risk (VaR) of exploration investments.The study utilizes the properties of discriminant analysis for deriving Z-score models that can be used for monitoring firms\u27 performance. A co-integration analysis is utilized as well in order to examine the level of co-integration between predictors of each performance measure. The sample includes annual data for forty one firms (local and multinational) working in the Oil and Gas industry in Egypt for the period 2009-2014.The results show that (a) amount and growth of exploration investment are quite robust performance measures in the Oil and Gas industry, (b) VaR of exploration investment is sporadic as it firm-specific, (c) GDP, Capital expenditure and operating expenditure are quite relevant for managing and monitoring growth of exploration investments.The study offers robust evidence that amount and growth of exploration investment are quire relevant firm performance in the Oil and Gas Industry

Metal coordinating inhibitors of Rift Valley fever virus replication

Rift Valley fever virus (RVFV) is a veterinary and human pathogen and is an agent of bioterrorism concern. Currently, RVFV treatment is limited to supportive care, so new drugs to control RVFV infection are urgently needed. RVFV is a member of the order Bunyavirales, whose replication depends on the enzymatic activity of the viral L protein. Screening for RVFV inhibitors among compounds with divalent cation-coordinating motifs similar to known viral nuclease inhibitors identified 47 novel RVFV inhibitors with selective indexes from 1.1-103 and 50% effective concentrations of 1.2-56 μM in Vero cells, primarily α-Hydroxytropolones and N-Hydroxypyridinediones. Inhibitor activity and selective index was validated in the human cell line A549. To evaluate specificity, select compounds were tested against a second Bunyavirus, La Crosse Virus (LACV), and the flavivirus Zika (ZIKV). These data indicate that the α-Hydroxytropolone and N-Hydroxypyridinedione chemotypes should be investigated in the future to determine their mechanism(s) of action allowing further development as therapeutics for RVFV and LACV, and these chemotypes should be evaluated for activity against related pathogens, including Hantaan virus, severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus

Serum levels of 25(OH) vitamin D and immunoglobulin E in infants with bronchiolitis

AbstractVitamin D status has a great effect on respiratory health throughout the lifespan.The aim of this studyThe aim of this study was to estimate and find the relationship between both 25(OH) vitamin D and immunoglobulin E serum levels and bronchiolitis in infancy.MethodsWe quantified serum 25(OH) D and serum immunoglobulin E using (ELISA) in 50 infants with bronchiolitis and 31 healthy controls of matched age and sex.ResultsThe mean serum 25(OH) vitamin D was significantly lower in cases than in controls; it was (12.3±3.9 & 26.2±10.0ng/ml, respectively with p=0.003). The mean serum IgE was significantly higher in cases than in controls; It was (170±66 & 43.8±14.2IU/ml, respectively and p=0.01). Serum IgE showed a non-significant negative correlation with serum 25(OH) vitamin D (r=−0.141, p=>0.05).ConclusionsSerum 25(OH) vitamin D was found in decreased quantities in infants with bronchiolitis and it was negatively correlated with serum IgE, suggesting that vitamin D may play a role in the pathogenesis of bronchiolitis

Quantum Effects on the Linear Dispersion Characteristics in Electron-Positron Plasma

In electron-positron plasmas some of the plasma modes are decoupled due to the equal charge to mass ratio of both species. The dispersion properties of the propagation of linear waves in degenerate electron–positron magnetoplasma are investigated. By using the quantum hydrodynamic equations with magnetic fields of the Wigner–Maxwell system, we have obtained a set of new dispersion relations in which ions’ motions are not considered. The general dielectric tensor is derived using the electron and positron densities and its momentum response to the quantum effects due to Bohm potential and the statistical effect of Femi temperature. It has been demonstrated the importance of magnetic field and its role with the quantum effects in these plasmas which support the propagation of electromagnetic linear waves. Besides, the dispersion relations in case of parallel and perpendicular modes are investigated for different positron-electron density ratios