The effects of the recent increases in oil prices on developing countries: The experiences of India, Pakistan and Kenya

This study deals with the impact of the four-fold increase of world oil prices during 1973/74 on the developing countries, taking the developments in India, Pakistan and Kenya in 1974 and 1975 as examples. A review of the literature partaining to the relationship "between oil consumption and economic development supports the hypotheses that (1) with rapid economic growth, involving structural changes in the economy, oil consumption tends to grow faster than aggregate output, and (2) oil demand is determined more by the level of economic activity than by changes in the price of oil. Furthermore, the large sudden rise in the cost of oil was superimposed on an already existing balance of payments deficit in India, Pakistan and Kenya, whose export potential was further detrimentally affected by the severe world recession during 1974/75. The relevant data for this study were obtained primarily from official sources and publications of international institutions. For each of the three countries, the pattern and trends of consumption and imports of oil as well as other sources of energy are analysed by means of ratio, correlation and regression analyses. The effects on the terms of trade, income transfer, and external balances are assessed, and the oil-induced changes in economic activity in the rest of the world are examined in relation to their effects on the growth and variability of the export potential of these countries, and the consequences on their foreign exchange reserves. The significance of oil in total energy consumption varies among the three countries, reflecting the general situation in other low-income developing countries. In India, a coal-orientated economy, it amounted to 25 per cent in 1973, whereas in Pakistan it was 42 per cent; only in Kenya was it predominant, at 92 per cent of total energy consumption. While Kenya has to import all of her oil, the imports of crude and refined oil into Pakistan and India accounted for 91 and 71 per cent, respectively, of their consumption in 1973, reflecting the general, heavy reliance on oil imports of the low-income countries. During 1973-1975, while the absolute amount of energy consumption increased in all the three countries, the share of oil in the total declined to about 23 per cent in India and 40 per cent in Pakistan, counter-balanced by a rise of indigenous non-oil fuels, whereas in Kenya the share of oil actually increased to 93 per cent due to absolute decline in imported coal. The effects of the rise in oil prices on the terms of trade, oil costs and income transfers were substantial. Deterioration of the commodity terms of trade was sharp, declining during 1973-75 from 107 to 70 for India, from 108 to 73 for Pakistan, and from 86 to 72 for Kenya (with 1970 = 100). By 1975, the increase in net oil import bills had risen three and a half times for India, four times for Pakistan and four and a quarter times for Kenya, The resulting income transfer pre-empted a large proportion of the realised growth, especially in the case of Kenya. The deterioration in the current account of the balance of payments and the widening of the foreign exchange gap were larger than can be attributed solely to the rise of the price of oil, because changes in import control policies and non-oil deficits also played a crucial role. Market share analysis shows that decreases in export earnings, caused by the oil-related recession in the OECD market, affected Pakistan and Kenya more severely than India. To some extent, these adverse affects were mitigated, except in the case of Kenya, through additional access to the OPEC market whose demand for imports was greatly boosted by the sudden and large increases of oil revenue, Although the post-1973 events in India, Pakistan and Kenya were different in some important respects, they do suggest that these three countries, and the low-income countries as a whole, had very limited manoeuvrability in the face of the oil crisis, because of their need to secure their minimum oil requirements on the one hand, and the underlying vulnerability of their external balances on the other

The role of interleukins 4, 17 and interferon gamma as biomarkers in patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and their correlation with disease activity

AbstractAim of the workThis work was designed to study the production of proinflammatory cytokines in SLE patients and their correlation with disease activity and study if they can be used as biomarkers for renal activity in lupus nephritis patients.Patients and methodsThis study was carried out on 70 subjects divided into two groups: Group I (SLE group) which included 40 SLE patients and Group II (Control group) which included 30 apparently healthy controls. The patients were subjected to full history taking and complete clinical examination. Assessment of disease activity in SLE patients by Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index (SLEDAI). Sera of patients and controls were screened for the level of cytokine expression of T helper cells including interleukin 17 (IL-17), interleukin 4 (IL-4) and interferon gamma (IFN-γ).ResultsSerum levels of IL-4 were significantly lower while both IL-17 and IFN-γ were significantly higher in SLE patients than in the control group. The most powerful predictor and correlated cytokine with the SLEDAI in SLE patients was IL-17. Higher serum level of IFN-γ was associated with more pyuria and hematuria, while higher IL-17 was associated with more pyuria and proteinuria in SLE patients.ConclusionThe serum level of IL-17 and IFN-γ was proven to be significantly higher in SLE patients and can be used as biomarkers of renal activity

A Corpus-Based Analysis of Deontic Modality of Obligation and Prohibition in Arabic/English Constitutions (Un análisis de corpus de la modalidad deóntica de obligación y prohibición en las constituciones árabes/inglesas)

It is argued that legal language should be formal, precise and clear to avoid ambiguity and/or misunderstanding. As rights and duties are communicated through modals, clarity and precision in drafting and translating them is crucial. Otherwise, there is a possibility of conveying loose messages in the source text or different and/or inconsistent messages in the target text. However, the drafting of Arabic modal expressions does not follow clear guidelines, and their translation differs from one translator to another. This paper investigates how deontic modality of obligation and prohibition is used in The Leeds Annotated Parallel Corpus of Arabic-English Constitutions in comparison to The Leeds Monolingual Corpus of English Constitutions. More specifically, the paper presents a classification of these modal ex-pressions and investigates the different lexical variants expressed in a Corpus of Arabic Constitutions. The paper uses corpus-based tools to analyse the different lexical forms used for deontic modality of obligation and prohibition in Arabic and how they are rendered into English. Results of such analysis are compared to a non-translated Corpus of English Constitutions to find out whether the deontic meaning of the modals is comparable to the set of deontic modals used in the constitutions originally drafted in English. The corpus-based analysis gave a detailed classification of a variety of modal expressions used in the Arabic Corpus. It also showed that the translation of deontic modals of obligation and prohibition from Arabic into English is influenced by the source text lexical variations; however, the corpus techniques employed in the study managed to capture some comparable modals in both corpor

Sinai and Norfa chicken diversity revealed by microsatellite markers

The present study aimed to outline the population differentiation of Sinai and Norfa chicken, native to Egypt, with microsatellite markers. Twenty microsatellite loci recommended by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) were used. Fifty eight birds were sampled (29 for each strain: 12 males + 17 females). Data were collected and genetic diversity indicators were assessed utilizing the approaches implemented in FSTAT, Cervus 3.0.7 and GenAlEx 6.5 software programmes. A total number of 182 alleles were detected with an average value of 9.1 allele per locus. The expected heterozygosity was 6.625 and 6.343 in Norfa and Sinai chickens, respectively. Norfa chickens produced 15 private alleles, while there were 9 unique alleles detected in Sinai chickens (13.18% private alleles as a percentage of the total observed number of alleles). Fixation indices’ (FST, FIS, and FIT) values were 0.060, 0.410 and 0.438, respectively, across all 20 loci investigated. Results indicated that the studied populations were genetically differentiated. Consequently, they have high breeding potential. Efforts should be made to incorporate the other local chicken strains as unique genetic resources into conservation programmes. This should begin with proper management of these flocks to ensure the maintenance of their genetic diversity over time by avoiding inbreeding. Such information is likely to have a profound effect on the success of genetic improvement and completes information from phenotypes and biometric measurements of the domestic chickens in Egypt.Keywords: Egyptian, genetic diversity, local chicken, microsatellit

An Optimum Performance of A Flat-Type Solar Air Heater With A Porous Absorber

This investigation is concerned with the design and performance of a flat solar air heater in which air flows perpendicular from a vented transparent cover through a porous absorber plate. The design phase involves a stability analysis to determine the critical distance (maximum allowable distance) between the absorber and transparent plates, for suppressing convection currents, under a variety of environmental and operating conditions. These results are expected to be useful to designers of solar collectors. In addition, the thermal performance of this solar heater at its optimum design conditions was computed for a wide range of system parameters illustrating the contributions of conduction and radiative modes of heat transfer. The results indicate that best operating efficiency can be obtained when running the collector with mass flow rate, m > 40 Kg/m2 hr

Failure Mode and Effect Analysis a Tool for Reliability Evaluation: Review

The purpose of safety designing is generally not on cost, but rather on saving life and nature, and consequently bargains just with specific risky system failure modes. High reliability levels are the consequence of good designing, scrupulousness and dependably never the aftereffect of re-dynamic failure management. Failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) is a helpful technique analyzing engineering system reliability. The study focused on the use of FMEA technique to analyze the reliability of engineering equipment or components in selected areas such as: Wind Turbine component, Manufacturing Industries, Medical field and in evaluating the performances of Robots in different fields. The study showed the importance of FMEA as used widely in analyzing engineering equipment with regards to reliability

Clinical and Pharmacokinetic Outcomes of Peak–Trough-Based Versus Trough-Based Vancomycin Therapeutic Drug Monitoring Approaches: A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial

Background Vancomycin therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) is based on achieving 24-h area under the concentration–time curve to minimum inhibitory concentration cure breakpoints (AUC24/MIC). Approaches to vancomycin TDM vary, with no head-to-head randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparisons to date. Objectives We aimed to compare clinical and pharmacokinetic outcomes between peak–trough-based and trough-only-based vancomycin TDM approaches and to determine the relationship between vancomycin AUC24/MIC and cure rates. Methods A multicentered pragmatic parallel-group RCT was conducted in Hamad Medical Corporation hospitals in Qatar. Adult non-dialysis patients initiated on vancomycin were randomized to peak–trough-based or trough-only-based vancomycin TDM. Primary endpoints included vancomycin AUC24/MIC ratio breakpoint for cure and clinical effectiveness (therapeutic cure vs therapeutic failure). Descriptive, inferential, and classification and regression tree (CART) statistical analyses were applied. NONMEM.v.7.3 was used to conduct population pharmacokinetic analyses and AUC24 calculations. Results Sixty-five patients were enrolled [trough-only-based-TDM (n = 35) and peak–trough-based-TDM (n = 30)]. Peak–trough-based TDM was significantly associated with higher therapeutic cure rates compared to trough-only-based TDM [76.7% vs 48.6%; p value = 0.02]. No statistically significant differences were observed for all-cause mortality, neutropenia, or nephrotoxicity between the two groups. Compared to trough-only-based TDM, peak–trough-based TDM was associated with less vancomycin total daily doses by 12.05 mg/kg/day (p value = 0.027). CART identified creatinine clearance (CLCR), AUC24/MIC, and TDM approach as significant determinants of therapeutic outcomes. All patients [n = 19,100%] with CLCR ≤ 7.85 L/h, AUC24/MIC ≤ 1256, who received peak–trough-based TDM achieved therapeutic cure. AUC24/MIC > 565 was identified to be correlated with cure in trough-only-based TDM recipients [n = 11,84.6%]. No minimum AUC24/MIC breakpoint was detected by CART in the peak–trough-based group. Conclusion Maintenance of target vancomycin exposures and implementation of peak–trough-based vancomycin TDM may improve vancomycin-associated cure rates. Larger scale RCTs are warranted to confirm these findings.Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library. We would like to thank Dr. Hani Abdelaziz and Dr. Eman El-Mekaty for their efforts and contributions in the design and implementation of this study. We would also like to thank all staff at HMC who helped to conduct the study

Arthropods on Mars?

As presented in this report numerous fossils like forms resembling a variety of marine arthropods including crustaceans, sea spiders, scorpions, arachnids, nematodes, annelids, tube worms, sea snakes, Kimberlla, Namacalathus, Lophotrochozoa, armored trilobites and millipedes have been found in Gale Crater (on Sols 302, 553, 753, 781, 809, 869, 880, 905, 1032), and Meridiani Planum both of which have hosted rivers, lakes, and inland seas. Similar specimens are mixed within a variety of divergent fossillike forms and are also found on distant sediment and mud stone. All specimens are distinct from underlying substrate and there are no obvious patterns or repetitions typically produced by erosion or weathering. Although without extraction and direct examination it is impossible to precisely determine the identity of all these specimens, the same problems bedevil identification of Burgess Shale fossils some of which are presented in this report for comparative analysis. The discoveries presented here and in other reports supports the theory that metazoans and other marine organisms evolved in the lakes, oceans and inland seas of Mars

Diosgenin alleviates D-galactose-induced oxidative stress in rats’ brain and liver targeting aging and apoptotic marker genes

The theory of aging is primarily concerned with oxidative stress caused by an imbalance in reactive oxygen species generation and cellular antioxidants. To alleviate the oxidative stress, we investigated the protective effect of diosgenin (DSG) for D-galactose (D-gal) using 20 and 40 mg of DSG/kg/day/orally for 42 days. The findings showed that D-gal caused brain and liver oxidative injuries by upregulating aging and oxidative markers. To counteract the oxidative stress caused by D-gal, DSG upregulated glutathione peroxidase-1, superoxide dismutase-1, and glutathione S-transferase-α. DSG also diminished the expression of p53, p21, Bcl-2-associated X protein, caspase-3, and mammalian target of rapamycin in brain and liver, as well as the build-up of β-galactosidase. DSG, in a dose-dependent manner, decreased the oxidative aging effects of D-gal in brain and liver tissues through targeting of aging and apoptotic marker genes. Finally, it should be noted that consuming DSG supplements is a suggesting natural preventative agent that may counteract aging and preserve health through improvement of body antioxidant status and control aging associated inflammation and cellular apoptosis

The Taman Siswa in Postwar Indonesia

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