Microfinance Institutions’ Efficiency in the MENA Region: a Bootstrap-DEA approach

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of microfinance institutions in The MENA region over the period 2006-2009. Following Simar and Wilson (1998, 2000) we use a DEA-Bootstrapping methodology to drift appropriate measures of DEA efficiency scores. The estimated results show that average efficiency of the most countries in the region has decreased over the period under study. Results also reveal that efficiency significantly differs by legal status of the microfinance institutions. Keywords: Microfinance, DEA, Bootstrap, MENA

Implémentation de solutions intégrées pour la gestion de l’information dans les chantiers de construction

La construction est une industrie où les projets sont tributaires de l'efficacité avec laquelle l’information peut circuler entre les intervenants. La faible productivité de l’industrie que l’on constate aujourd'hui pourrait être expliquée en partie par la fragmentation de l'information dans les projets. De plus, l’industrie de la construction se caractérise par l’unicité des produits livrés. Ceci implique que les projets devront être gérés et réalisés avec des organisations temporaires qui perdurent rarement au delà d’un projet unique. Là où des technologies comme le DAO (Dessin Assisté par Ordinateur) ont été generalises dans l’industrie depuis plus de deux décennies et où de nouvelles technologies comme le BIM (Building Information Modeling) sont en train de prendre une part de plus en plus importante du marché, les chantiers sont aujourd’hui les derniers à profiter des nouvelles technologies de l’information, et en dépit du fait qu’ils sont sujets à des échanges d’information importants, le support dominant reste encore le papier. L’évolution des Technologies Mobiles dans les dernières années offre plusieurs nouvelles pistes d’amélioration au niveau de la gestion de l’information sur les chantiers de construction. Les technologies infonuagiques offrent plusieurs possibilités de centralisation et de partage d’information, et certaines entreprises innovantes ont commencé à intégrer plusieurs de ces technologies mobiles dans leurs pratiques sur chantier. Ce mémoire présente les résultats d’une étude de cas exploratoire d’une année qui vise à investiguer l’introduction et l’adoption des Technologies Mobiles (TM) dans les organisations de la construction. Ce projet a exploré le processus d’analyse de solutions technologique, d’essais et d’activités pilotes sur chantier dans un contexte industriel et dans les premières étapes d’un projet d’implémentation. L’objectif derrière cette recherché exploratoire est de tirer des apprentissages au sujet du déploiement et de l’implémentation des TM au sein des organisations

Psychological and Psychosocial Consequences of Zoonotic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis among Women in Tunisia: Preliminary Findings from an Exploratory Study

Background The incidence of zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis (ZCL) makes it the most widespread parasitic disease in Tunisia and the Arab world. Yet, few studies have addressed its psychological and psychosocial effects. The purpose of this study was to examine the psychosocial impact of ZCL scars among Tunisian women. Methods We conducted an exploratory study, we administered Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R), World Health Organization Quality Of Life-26 (WHOQOL-26) and Psoriasis Life Stress Inventory (PLSI) to a group of girls and women with ZCL scar in the region of Sidi Bouzid. This group was randomly selected from volunteers who came to primary health care facilities to seek for treatment for any pathology. Results Descriptive statistics showed that the collected scores from the three scales exhibit heterogeneous distributions: IPQ-R (M = 63.6, SD = 15.6), PSLI (M = 9.5, SD = 6.7), WHOQOL-Physical (M = 63, SD = 12.9), WHOQOL-Psychological (M = 52.6, SD = 11.1), WHOQOL-Social (M = 61.8, SD = 17.5), and WHOQOL-Environmental (M = 47.8, SD = 13.3). The correlation analyses performed on Inter and intra-subscales showed that the emotional representations associated with ZCL were correlated with the loss of self-esteem and feelings of inferiority (r = 0.77, p<0.05). In addition, high education level and the knowledge about ZCL are positively correlated with cognitive and emotional representation in the IPQ-R (r = 0.33, p<0.05). "Rejection experiences" and the "anticipation and avoidance of stress" were respectively negatively correlated with age (r = -0.33, p<0.05 and r = -0.31, p<0.05). Correlations between the scores on IPQ-R domains and PLSI factors were significant. The results showed that anticipation of rejection and avoidance of stress are strongly correlated with a negative perception of ZCL. Quality of life scores were not correlated with either age, education level, time of illness, or the number of facial or body scars. However, the correlations between quality of life scores and the multiple IPQ-R domains were all insignificant. Finally, there was a negative correlation between the scores on the perceived quality of social life and the knowledge about ZCL (r = -0.34, p<0.05). Conclusions This makes it vital to strengthen preventive health education. Conducting studies on ways to establish a holistic support system for managing ZCL, a system that covers the psychological challenges and the barriers it causes to women’s social and professional integration, is a vital first step

Bridging the complexity gap in Tbps-achieving THz-band baseband processing

Recent advances in electronic and photonic technologies have allowed efficient signal generation and transmission at terahertz (THz) frequencies. However, as the gap in THz-operating devices narrows, the demand for terabit-per-second (Tbps)-achieving circuits is increasing. Translating the available hundreds of gigahertz (GHz) of bandwidth into a Tbps data rate requires processing thousands of information bits per clock cycle at state-of-the-art clock frequencies of digital baseband processing circuitry of a few GHz. This paper addresses these constraints and emphasizes the importance of parallelization in signal processing, particularly for channel code decoding. By leveraging structured sub-spaces of THz channels, we propose mapping bits to transmission resources using shorter code words, extending parallelizability across all baseband processing blocks. THz channels exhibit quasi-deterministic frequency, time, and space structures that enable efficient parallel bit mapping at the source and provide pseudo-soft bit reliability information for efficient detection and decoding at the receiver

Structural, optical and electrical investigations on Nb doped TiO2 radio-frequency sputtered thin films from a powder target

Pure and Nb doped TiO2 (TNO) thin films were deposited onto glass substrates by RF magnetron sputtering technique using a Nb and TiO2 mixture powder target at room temperature to explore the possibility of producing sputtered TNO films by a low cost process. The effect of Nb doping on the structure, morphology, optical and electrical properties of the prepared films was studied by systematically varying the Nb content from 2 to 6 wt%. GXRD results show that the deposited films mainly possess rutile phase with the (110) orientation. Raman spectra confirm that the deposited films are predominantly rutile phase. Surface roughness increases with the increase of Nb doping concentration , which may be attributed to the structural changes in the film due to the incorporation of Nb into the TiO2 lattice. Optical transmittance in the visible range reaches 85 % for the undoped films then it decreases as the doping content increases. Doping by niobium resulted in a slight increase in the optical band gap energy of the films due to the Burstein–Moss effect. The resistivity measurement of TNO films reveals that the Nb doping improves the electrical conductivity of the deposited films compared to the undoped one. The best value was observed for films deposited at 4 wt% Nb

Prognostic impact of vitamin B6 metabolism in lung cancer

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) are routinely treated with cytotoxic agents such as cisplatin. Through a genome-wide siRNA-based screen, we identified vitamin B6 metabolism as a central regulator of cisplatin responses in vitro and in vivo. By aggravating a bioenergetic catastrophe that involves the depletion of intracellular glutathione, vitamin B6 exacerbates cisplatin-mediated DNA damage, thus sensitizing a large panel of cancer cell lines to apoptosis. Moreover, vitamin B6 sensitizes cancer cells to apoptosis induction by distinct types of physical and chemical stress, including multiple chemotherapeutics. This effect requires pyridoxal kinase (PDXK), the enzyme that generates the bioactive form of vitamin B6. In line with a general role of vitamin B6 in stress responses, low PDXK expression levels were found to be associated with poor disease outcome in two independent cohorts of patients with NSCLC. These results indicate that PDXK expression levels constitute a biomarker for risk stratification among patients with NSCLC.publishedVersio