Impact of the structural adjustment program on agricultural production and resource use in Egypt:

This paper uses an agricultural sector model to evaluate the effects of an ambitious and ongoing policy reform program on agricultural production and resource use in Egypt. The results show that Egypt has already gained from the policy reforms, but that much larger gains depend on increased exports of high value crops. Water is found to be emerging as an important constraint on agriculture, and it will be essential to establish more effective institutional and pricing mechanisms to encourage greater water use efficiency in the future. Because many of the new lands compete with the more productive lands of the Nile delta for water, the economic return to the development of new lands is also found to be low. The policy reforms are not likely to lead to substantial increases in agricultural employment, even if exports of high value crops could be increased. However, the model results also show that more employment intensive strategies could be designed that would involve little sacrifice in economic efficiency.Agricultural productivity Egypt., Exports Egypt., Water use Management., Agriculture Environmental aspects. ,

Vertigo: Comparing Structural Models of Imperfect Behavior in Experimental Games

This paper investigates learning in games with one-sided incomplete information using laboratory data from a game which we call the game of Vertigo. The predicted Bayes-Nash equilibrium behavior of the agents in this type of game generates overly strong restrictions on the data, including the zero likelihood problem: certain actions should never be observed. To circumvent statistical problems, and to allow for deviations from perfectly rational behavior, we introduce the possibility of players making errors when choosing their actions. We compare two competing models depending on whether players take the errors in actions into consideration when formulating their strategies. We also investigate possible deviations from Bayes's rule, producing too fast or too slow an updating rule. In total, we get six models of sophisticated and unsophisticated strategy formation on the first dimension, and fast, slow, or no updating on the second. We apply a fully Bayesian structural econometric approach to compare the statistical performance of these six models, and to obtain posterior estimates of several nuisance parameters governing the errors in actions. The two models where players are unsophisticated and either use no updating at all, or use dampened updating, have a much higher likelihood than any of the others

CASE REPORT Moebius syndrome with macular hyperpigmentation, skeletal anomalies, and hypoplasia of pectoralis major muscle in an Egyptian child

We report a 4 month old female infant, 3rd in order of birth of the first cousin consanguineous parents. The patient has congenital right facial nerve palsy, with asymmetry of facial expression during crying and difficulty in swallowing. Associated anomalies include abnormal facial features, bilateral finger anomalies, bilateral talipes equinovarus, kyphoscoliosis, hypotonia, high frequency hearing loss. Bilateral macular hyperpigmentation was detected in our patient on fundus examination which was not reported previously in Moebius syndrome cases. In addition there is hypoplasia of the right pectoralis major muscle.KEYWORDS Moebius syndrome; Macular hyperpigmentation; Pectoralis major muscle; Cranial nerves; Ptosis; Facial nerve pals

Case Report: Bilateral iris, choroid, optic nerve colobomas and retinal detachment in an Egyptian patient with mild Baraitser–Winter syndrome

Background: Baraitser–Winter syndrome (BRWS) is a malformation syndrome, characterized by facial dysmorphism, ocular colobomata, pachygyria, and intellectual defects.Case report: A 3.5 year old female child with BRWS has bilateral congenital ptosis, microcornea, iris, choroid, and optic nerve coloboma, retinal detachment, and mental retardation. She has also frontal bossing, prominent forehead, thick eyebrows, transverse slanting, hypertelorism, wide palpebral fissures, and nystagmus. The nose is broad, and bulbous with wide nares, and broad nasal tip. She has also low set posteriorly rotated ears, full cheeks, long philtrum, large mouth (macrostomia), gum hypertrophy, decayed teeth, high arched palate, pointed chin, short neck, low posterior hair line, partial left simian crease, and short fingers. MRI brain shows frontal polymicrogyria.Conclusion: This patient represents a mild case of Baraitser–Winter syndrome.Keywords: Baraitser–Winter syndrome; Optic nerve coloboma; Ptosis; Mental retardatio

Berardinelli–Seip syndrome type 2 – An Egyptian child

We report a 2.5 year old male, first in order of birth of first cousin consanguineous parents with the typical features of Berardinelli–Seip congenital lipodystrophy 2 (BSCL2) since birth with moderate mental retardation. He had generalized lipodystrophy with various dermatologic and systemic manifestations. The patient looked older than his age with the loss of buccal pad of fat, hypertrichosis mainly on the back and lower limbs, thick scalp hair, mild prognathism, large hands and feet with prominent joints and muscular hypertrophy. Acanthosis nigricans was evident over the neck and both axillae inspite of the normal level of sugar and insulin. The abdomen was markedly prominent with mild hepatosplenomegaly and enlarged external genitals. Echo-cardiography demonstrated cardiac hypertrophy. Triglyceride level was high with reduced high density lipoproteins (HDL)

Extraction versus non-extraction orthodontic treatment:A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives: To compare four first premolar extraction and non-extraction treatment effects on intraarch width, profile, treatment duration, occlusal outcomes, smile aesthetics and stability.Materials and Methods: Electronic search of literature to June 2nd, 2023 was conducted, using health science databases with additional search of grey literature, unpublished material and hand searching, for studies reporting non-surgical patients with fixed appliances regarding sixteen sub outcomes. Data extraction utilized customized forms, quality assessed with ROBINS-I and Cochrane RoB 2. GRADE assessed certainty of evidence.Results: Thirty (29 RS, 1 RCT) studies were included. Random effect meta-analysis (95%CI) demonstrated maxillary (MD -2.03mm;[-2.97, -1.09];P<0.0001) and mandibular inter-first molar width decrease (MD -2.00mm;[-2.71, -1.30];P<0.00001) with four first premolar extraction. Mandibular intercanine width increase (MD 0.68mm;[0.36, 0.99];P<0.0001) and shorter treatment duration (MD 0.36years;[0.10, 0.62];P=0.007) in non-extraction group. Narrative synthesis included three and five studies for upper and lower lips-E plane, respectively. For ABO-OGS and maxillary/mandibular anterior alignment (Little’s Irregularity Index) each included two studies with inconclusive evidence. No eligible studies for UK PAR score. Class I subgroup/sensitivity analyses favoured same results. Prediction interval indicated no significant difference for all outcomes.Conclusions: Four first premolar extraction results in maxillary and mandibular inter-first molar width decrease and retraction of upper/lower lips. Non-extraction treatment results in mandibular intercanine width increase and shorter treatment duration. No significant difference between the two groups regarding maxillary intercanine width, US PAR score and posttreatment smile aesthetics. Further high-quality focused research recommended

Modification of bacterial cell membrane to accelerate decolorization of textile wastewater effluent using microbial fuel cells: role of gamma radiation

The aim of the present work was to increase bacterial adhesion on anode via inducing membrane modifications to enhance textile wastewater treatment in Microbial Fuel Cell (MFC). Real textile wastewater was used in mediator-less MFCs for bacterial enrichment. The enriched bacteria were pre-treated by exposure to 1 KGy gamma radiation and were tested in MFC setup. Bacterial cell membrane permeability and cell membrane charges were measured using noninvasive dielectric spectroscopy measurements. The results show that pre-treatment using gamma radiation resulted in biofilm formation and increased cell permeability and exopolysaccharide production; this was reflected in both MFC performance (average voltage 554.67 mV) and decolorization (96.42%) as compared to 392.77 mV and 60.76% decolorization for non-treated cells. At the end of MFC operation, cytotoxicity test was performed for treated wastewater using a dermal cell line, the results obtained show a decrease in toxicity from 24.8 to 0 (v/v%) when cells were exposed to gamma radiation. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy showed an increase in exopolysaccharides in bacterial consortium exposed to increasing doses of gamma radiation suggesting that gamma radiation increased exopolysaccharide production, providing transient media for electron transfer and contributing to accelerating MFC performance. Modification of bacterial membrane prior to MFC operation can be considered highly effective as a pre-treatment tool that accelerates MFC performance

Blepharophimosis, ptosis, epicanthus inversus syndrome type 2 with red hair, lymphedema of lower limbs and kidney stones in an Egyptian patient

We report the case of a 2 month old male, 6th in order of birth of 1st cousin consanguineous marriage with the typical features of blepharophimosis, ptosis, epicanthus inversus syndrome (BPES) including bilateral shortening of the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the palpebral fissures, bilateral eye lids drooping, lateral displacement of inner canthi with a small skin-fold obscuring the inner canthus of the eye. Our patient had normal psychomotor development. His father was similarly affected suggesting autosomal dominant inheritance. The patient had red brown hair, lymphedema of lower limbs and kidney stones which were not reported before with this syndrome. Most probably these additional features are associations with BPES

Numerical investigation of high-pressure combustion in rocket engines using Flamelet/Progress-variable models

The present paper deals with the numerical study of high pressure LOx/H2 or LOx/hydrocarbon combustion for propulsion systems. The present research effort is driven by the continued interest in achieving low cost, reliable access to space and more recently, by the renewed interest in hypersonic transportation systems capable of reducing time-to-destination. Moreover, combustion at high pressure has been assumed as a key issue to achieve better propulsive performance and lower environmental impact, as long as the replacement of hydrogen with a hydrocarbon, to reduce the costs related to ground operations and increase flexibility. The current work provides a model for the numerical simulation of high- pressure turbulent combustion employing detailed chemistry description, embedded in a RANS equations solver with a Low Reynolds number k-omega turbulence model. The model used to study such a combustion phenomenon is an extension of the standard flamelet-progress-variable (FPV) turbulent combustion model combined with a Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equation Solver (RANS). In the FPV model, all of the thermo-chemical quantities are evaluated by evolving the mixture fraction Z and a progress variable C. When using a turbulence model in conjunction with FPV model, a probability density function (PDF) is required to evaluate statistical averages of chemical quantities. The choice of such PDF must be a compromise between computational costs and accuracy level. State- of-the-art FPV models are built presuming the functional shape of the joint PDF of Z and C in order to evaluate Favre-averages of thermodynamic quantities. The model here proposed evaluates the most probable joint distribution of Z and C without any assumption on their behavior.Comment: presented at AIAA Scitech 201

Computational Issues in the Statistical Design and Analysis of Experimental Games

One goal of experimental economics is to provide data to identify models that best describe the behavior of experimental subjects and, more generally, human economic behavior. We discuss here what we think are the three main steps required to make experimental investigations of economic games as statistically informative as possible: finding the solution of the experimental game under the postulated equilibrium or other economic models, selecting from a potential class of experimental designs the optimal one for discriminating between those models, and choosing an optimal stopping rule that indicates when to stop sampling data and accept one model as the best explanation of the data. Each step can be computationally intensive. We offer an algorithmic presentation of the necessary computations in each of the three steps and illustrate these procedures by examples from our research on learning models in experimental games with incomplete information. These three steps of experimental design and analysis are not limited to experimental games, but the computational burden of implementing these algorithms in other experimental environments - for example, market experiments - requires further considerations with which we have not dealt