Energy Subsidies in the Arab World

The policy of maintaining tight control of domestic energy prices has characterized the political and economic environment in most Arab countries, together with many other parts of the world, for decades. The objectives behind such a policy range from overall welfare objectives such as expanding energy access and protecting poor households’ incomes; to economic development objectives such as fostering industrial growth and smoothing domestic consumption; and to politi- cal considerations, including the distribution of oil and natural gas rents in resource-rich countries. While energy subsidies may be seen as achieving some of a country’s objectives, this paper argues they are a costly and inefficient way of doing so. Energy subsidies distort price signals, with serious implications on efficiency and the optimal allocation of resources. Energy subsidies also tend to be regressive, with high-income households and industries benefiting proportionately most from low energy prices. However, despite such adverse effects, energy subsidies constitute an important social safety net for the poor in many parts of the Arab world, and any attempts to reduce or eliminate them in the absence of compensatory programmes would lead to a decline in households’ welfare and erode the competitiveness of certain industries. Therefore, a critical factor for successful reforms will be the ability of governments to compensate their populations for the reduction or removal of subsidies through carefully designed mitigation measures that protect the poorest and assist the economy in its long-term adaptation. We argue that a reform of energy pric- ing mechanisms in the Arab world may be seen as beneficial from more than one perspective, and as offering potential paths for reform. Nevertheless, this paper recognizes that the current political climate in the region will render the reform of domestic energy prices difficult in practice, such that reform may indeed be a medium- to long-term endeavour

Solidification Versus Adsorption for Immobilization of Pollutants in Geopolymeric Materials: A Review

Geopolymer (GP) is a class of three-dimensional aluminosilicate binder, which is superior to Portland cement materials in acid, heat and fire resistance. GP is produced by reacting an aluminosilicate source (metakaolin, fly ash or waste) with an alkali metal hydroxide or silicate. The aim of the present work is to review the latest developments in three lines of research that deal with application of GP in treatment of pollutants. The first “intra-solidification” that involves mixing real waste (containing heavy metal pollutants) with the GP precursors to obtain a high mechanical strength material. The second type of solidification is “inter-solidification” that involves incorporation of heavy metals solutions (as simulation of polluted water) during geopolymerization reaction. The third line of research “adsorption” involves agitating GP with heavy metals solutions and studying the ability of GP to remove heavy metals from water. These techniques will be investigated regarding efficiency and mechanism of immobilization, cost and environmental impact. GPs are strong low-cost adsorbents for heavy metals. In intra-solidification, despite the high mechanical strength of the produced GP-containing waste, geopolymerization reduces effectively the leaching of heavy metals. The reverse was observed in the case of inter-solidification which presents a greater challenge than intra-solidification

A Brief Political Economy of Energy Subsidies in the Middle East and North Africa

Energy subsidies are among the most pervasive and controversial fiscal policy tools used in the Middle East and North Africa (mena). In a region with few functioning social welfare systems, subsidised energy prices continue to form an important social safety net, albeit a highly costly and inefficient one. In the mena region’s oil and gas producing countries, low energy prices have also historically formed an important element of an unwritten social contract, where governments have extracted their countries’ hydrocarbon riches in return for citizens’ participation in sharing resource rents. While it is clear that energy subsidy reform will not be the only variable at play, its potential socio-economic dividends are important factors for enabling some common regional objectives—sustainable fiscal policies, fiscal space to invest in key areas, and a more efficient and equitable distribution of scarce resources—to be achieved, helping to promote a more stable political status quo in the long term. If accommodated by effective mitigation measures, reforming energy subsidies in the mena region’s middleincome economies could be a powerful tool for governments—addressing those very profound socio-economic grievances that have contributed to the outbreak of political protest and, in some cases, to an intensification of domestic infighting over political control. In this paper, we look at some of the mena region’s potential avenues for reform. While the past has demonstrated the political difficulty of reforming energy prices, recent experience also shows that the reform of energy subsidies can be achieved, if accompanied by a set of enabling factors

Energy Poverty in the Arab World: The Case of Yemen

While much of the emphasis of the literature on energy poverty is on the prevalence of the phenomenon in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, little has been written about energy poverty in the Arab world. Traditionally having being seen as one of the world’s most energy rich regions, the Arab world has in recent years often been overlooked as a region which suffers severely from energy poverty itself. In 2002, about 65 million people in the Arab world had no access to electricity, and an additional 60 million were severely undersupplied in both urban and rural areas. In terms of cooking and heating, almost one-fifth of the Arab population rely on non-commercial fuels like wood, dung, and agricultural residues particularly in Comoros, Djibouti, Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia but also in Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, and Syria. This study by Laura El-Katiri and Bassam Fattouh fills a gap in the existing literature by looking at the case of prevailing energy poverty in Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. The Yemeni case is particularly interesting because of the country’s status as a net energy exporter. Large segments of the Yemeni population both in rural and urban areas rely heavily on traditional fuels such as firewood and dung while electrification rates in Yemen is relatively low where only 54% of Yemeni households have access to electricity. Decades of underinvestment and lack of necessary infrastructure, and Yemen’s prevailing poverty problem have all contributed to this status, as has the country’s fractured political system

Effectiveness of query expansion in searching the Holy Quran

Modern Arabic text is written without diacritical marks (short vowels), which causes considerable ambiguity at the word level in the absence of context. Exceptional from this is the Holy Quran, which is endorsed with short vowels and other marks to preserve the pronunciation and hence, the correctness of sensing its words. Searching for a word in vowelized text requires typing and matching all its diacritical marks, which is cumbersome and preventing learners from searching and understanding the text. The other way around, is to ignore these marks and fall in the problem of ambiguity. In this paper, we provide a novel diacritic-less searching approach to retrieve from the Quran relevant verses that match a user’s query through automatic query expansion techniques. The proposed approach utilizes a relational database search engine that is scalable, portable across RDBMS platforms, and provides fast and sophisticated retrieval. The results are presented and the applied approach reveals future directions for search engines

Compound Odontoma:Diagnosis and treatment: Case report

Odontomas are an asymptomatic benign odontogenic tumors, generally discovered fortuitously, or when a tooth failed to erupt. They are mainly composed of enamel and dentin, cement and pulp tissue can also be present in variable amounts. In 2005, the World Health Organization classified two main types of odontoma, an amorphous and irregular mass of calcified dental tissues as complexe odontoma and multiple miniature tooth-like structures as compound odontoma. This article is a case presentation of a compound odontoma diagnosed for an eleven year old girl upon a routine radiography, making it a lesion of childhood /adolescence. A retro-alveolar radiography of the anterior maxilla revealed a radiopaque mass with prominent external margins surrounded by a thin radiolucent rim in close contact with the root of the permanent right central incisor. In this case a surgical excision of the lesion was performed in order to prevent any risk of root resorption for the tooth in close contact. The results achieved indicate that the early diagnosis of odontomas allows the adoption of a less complex and inexpensive treatment and ensures better prognosis (1). A histological evaluation is imperative in order to confirm the exact diagnosis of odontoma

Pleine conscience, régulation émotionnelle et psychose : états des connaissances et applications cliniques

Cette thèse est divisée en trois parties principales, ayant toutes trait à la régulation des émotions ou à l'efficacité des interventions issues de la troisième vague des thérapies cognitives comportementales, en particulier chez les personnes ayant des symptômes psychotiques. La thèse est composée d'un chapitre de livre rédigé en francais, de quatre articles rédigés en anglais (introduction, deux méta-analyses et une étude pilote) et d’une discussion générale rédigée en anglais. L'introduction, déjà publiée sous le format d’un chapitre de livre (et d’un article) constitue un examen exhaustif de la littérature portant sur la régulation des émotions dans la schizophrénie et dans les autres troubles psychotiques. Les individus présentant une schizophrénie présentent des dérégulations, indépendantes l’une de l’autre, dans les trois domaines distincts suivants: l’expression des émotions, le traitement des emotions, et l’expérience émotionnelle. Cette première partie de la thèse recommande fortement l'intégration des stratégies de régulation des émotions, notamment celles de la troisième vague des thérapies cognitives comportementales telles que la pleine conscience, l'acceptation et la compassion, dans le traitement des personnes souffrant de psychose. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, deux méta-analyses examinant l'efficacité des stratégies de la troisième vague des traitements cognitifs comportementaux dans la régulation des émotions sont présentées. La première méta-analyse vise à examiner l'efficacité de la thérapie basée sur la pleine conscience pour tous les troubles psychologiques ainsi que pour les conditions médicales. La deuxième méta-analyse porte plus spécifiquement sur l'efficacité des stratégies de la troisième vague pour la psychose. Les résultats des deux méta-analyses démontrent des tailles d'effet entre modérées et larges, avec un effet plus marqué sur les symptômes affectifs, notamment l'anxiété, la dépression et la détresse. En outre, les stratégies étudiées (la pleine conscience, l'acceptation et la compassion) sont des fortes modératrices positives de l'efficacité des traitements. Ces résultats suggèrent que ces stratégies sont efficaces dans la régulation des émotions, du moins lorsqu'elles sont mesurées au sein de grands bassins de participants, y compris les personnes souffrant de psychose. La troisième partie de la thèse implique le développement et la validation préliminaire d'une nouvelle intervention de groupe pour des individus en début de psychose à l'aide d'une combinaison de stratégies d'acceptation, de compassion et de la pleine conscience. Douze individus ont participé à cette étude pilote. Les résultats démontrent la faisabilité et l'acceptabilité du traitement. Des améliorations significatives dans la régulation des émotions et dans les symptômes affectifs sont observées, et sont potentiellement liées à l'intervention. Globalement, la thèse offre un soutien empirique du rôle de la régulation émotionnelle dans le traitement des personnes atteintes de troubles psychotiques. Plus de recherches sont nécessaires pour valider l'efficacité du nouveau traitement.This thesis is divided into three main parts, all pertaining to emotional regulation or to the efficacy of third wave cognitive behavioral treatments particularly in individuals having experienced psychotic symptoms. The thesis consists of one book chapter published in French, four articles published in English (i.e., introduction, deux meta-analyses and a clinical pilot study), and a general discussion. The introduction already published as an article (and as book chapter) involves a comprehensive review of the literature on emotion regulation in schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. Individuals with schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders tend to show emotional dysregulations at the experiential, expressive, and processing levels. This first part strongly recommends integrating emotion regulation strategies, namely third wave cognitive behavioral strategies such as mindfulness, acceptance and compassion in the treatment of individuals with psychosis. In the second part of the thesis, two meta-analyses reviewing the effectiveness of these third wave cognitive behavioral strategies in regulating emotions are presented. The first investigates the effectiveness of mindfulness-based therapy across all psychological disorders and medical conditions. The second meta-analysis focuses more specifically on the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions for psychosis. The results from both meta-analyses show moderate to large effect sizes, with higher ones for affective symptoms, especially anxiety, depression and distress. Furthermore, the investigated strategies (i.e., mindfulness, acceptance and compassion) are strong positive moderators of the treatments’ effectiveness. These results suggest that these strategies are effective in regulating emotions, at least when measured in large pools of participants, including individuals with psychosis. The third part of the thesis involves the development and preliminary validation of a new group intervention for early psychosis using a combination of acceptance, compassion and mindfulness. Twelve individuals participated in this pilot study. Results indicated the feasibility and acceptability of the treatment, with improvements in emotion regulation and affective symptoms observed, and potentially linked to the intervention. The thesis overall empirically supports the important role of emotional regulation in treating individuals with psychosis. More research is warranted pertaining to the effectiveness of the new developed treatment

Influence de l'élancement du pressiomètre sur la mesure des propriétés de résistance et de déformation des argiles en conditions non drainées

Expansion d'une cavité cylindrique -- Le critère de Tresca -- Le critère de Von Mises -- Expansion d'une cavité cylindrique dans un sol élasto-plastique -- L'essai pressiométrique -- Aperçu sur les essais pressiométriques -- Élancement du pressiomètre -- Théories d'interprétations -- Analyse numérique de l'essai pressiométrique -- Présentation du programme FLAC 3.4 -- Maillages choisis -- Données du calcul -- Effet de la finesse du maillage -- Chargement