78 research outputs found
An integrative model of macro and micro level factors affecting budgetary control : a cross-cultural study
R&D Uncertainty in Future Benefits
This paper contributes to the current debate on accounting treatment of R&D expenditures. We considered two different measures of future benefits to a firm, sales revenue and operating cash flows. We provide evidence that R&D expenditures do not generate more uncertain future sales revenue or operating cash flows compared to capital expenditures. In terms of sales revenue, R&D expenditures generate significantly less uncertain future benefits compared to capital expenditures. And in terms of operating cash flows, our results do not provide conclusive evidence that whether R&D expenditures generate more uncertain future benefits than capital expenditures or not
Management and outcomes of caesarean scar pregnancy in medina maternity and children hospital
Undergoing previous cesarean section (CS) can have the possibility for implantation of embryonic sac of any later gestation throughout its scar evolving what was known as a scar pregnancy (SP). The aim of this study to describe the diagnosis, treatment and outcomes of caesarean SP in Medina maternity and children hospital. This a case series study encompassed all patient diagnosed and managed as cesarean SP in Medina maternity and children hospital, Medina (MMCH), Saudi Arabia in the period from January 2020 to January 2021. Demographics, clinical and discharge data were attained from the previous hospital electronic records, nursing notes, anesthesia sheets, operative notes, discharge papers, and outpatient clinic documents. A total of 11 women detected by ultrasound (US) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as SP. The mean age of women was 36±3.8 years. The median number of repeated CS was 2 while the mean gestational age was 50.6±7.8 days. The interval from diagnosis to management ranged from 2 to 9 days with a median of 4 days, and the interval between start treatment and negative Beta human chorionic gonadotropin ÎČ-hCG ranged from 21 to 135 days with a median of 62 days. The mean interval from last CS until this pregnancy is 39.7±19.2 months. Systemic methotrexate (MTX) given in a single dose for two patients while nine patients received multiple doses. Local MTX given for six cases. Bleeding as a complication occurred with two out of the eleven patients. MTX was actual treatment for SP, but bigger multicenter randomized-controlled trials involving more cases are essential to validate our conclusions
Immunoexpression of cyclin D1 in colorectal carcinomas is not correlated with survival outcome
AbstractBackgroundColon and colorectal cancer (CRC) research has entered a new era with recent updates of molecular events and prognostic markers. Among other prognostic markers, exaggerated expression of nuclear CCND1 has key role in tumour pathogenesis and metastases of CRC and has also been claimed to predict response to treatment.ObjectivesThis study was designed to evaluate the prognostic and predictive value of CCND1 in CRC and the correlation of CCND1 expression with the different clinicopathological parameters.MethodsParaffin blocks from 117 primary CRC were retrieved from the archives of the Department of Pathology at King Abdulaziz University. Tissue microarrays were designed and constructed. The immunostaining of CCND1 was performed and analysed.ResultsThere were more cases with low nuclear immunoexpression of CCND1in both primary tumours and nodal metastasis (p<0.001). Cyclin D1 did not show association with clinicopathological features except with lymphovascular invasion. Low nuclear immunoexpression of CCND1 was associated with negative lymphovascular invasion (p=0.046). There was no statistically significant correlation between CCND1 immunoexpression and survival probability (Log Rank=2.474, p=0.116).ConclusionOur study indicates that CCND1 immunoexpression cannot be used as a predictor of survival in CRC. It also shows no significant correlation with clinicopathological features except with lymphovascular invasion
Healthcare finance in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:a qualitative study of householdersâ attitudes
Background: The public sector healthcare system in Saudi Arabia, essentially financed by oil revenues and âfree at the point of deliveryâ, is coming under increasing strain due to escalating expenditure and an increasingly volatile oil market and is likely to be unsustainable in the medium to long term. Objectives: This study examines how satisfied the Saudi people are with their public sector healthcare services and assesses their willingness to contribute to financing the system through a national health insurance scheme. The study also examines public preferences and expectations of a future national health insurance system. Methods: A total of 36 heads of households participated in face-to-face audio-recorded semi-structured interviews. The participants were purposefully selected based on different socio-economic and socio-demographic factors from urban and rural areas to represent the geographical diversity that would presumably influence individual views, expectations, preferences and healthcare experiences. Results: The evidence showed some dissatisfaction with the provision and quality of current public sector healthcare services, including the availability of appointments, waiting times and the availability of drugs. The households indicated a willingness to contribute to a national insurance scheme, conditional upon improvements in the quality of public sector healthcare services. The results also revealed a variety of preferences and expectations regarding the proposed national health insurance scheme. Conclusions: Quality improvement is a key factor that could motivate the Saudi people to contribute to financing the healthcare system. A new authority, consisting of a partnership between the public and private sectors under government supervision, could represent an acceptable option for addressing the variation in public preferences
Performance analysis of contending customer equipment in wireless networks
NoInitial ranging is the primary and important process in wireless networks for the customer premise equipments (CPEs) to access the network and establish their connections with the base station. Contention may occur during the initial ranging process. To avoid contention, the mandatory solution defined in the standards is based on a truncated binary exponential random backoff (TBERB) algorithm with a fixed initial contention window size. However, the TBERB algorithm does not take into account the possibility that the number of contended CPEs may change dynamically over time, leading to a dynamically changing collision probability. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to address this issue. There are three major contributions presented in this paper. First, a comprehensive analysis of initial ranging mechanisms in wireless networks is provided and initial ranging request success probability is derived based on number of contending CPEs and the initial contention window size. Second, the average ranging success delay is derived for the maximum backoff stages. It is found that the collision probability is highly dependent on the size of the initial contention window and the number of contending CPEs. To achieve the higher success probability or to reduce the collision probability among CPEs, the BS needs to adjust the initial contention window size. To keep the collision probability at a specific value for the particular number of contending CPEs, it is necessary for the BS to schedule the required size of the initial contention window to facilitate the maximum number of CPEs to establish their connections with reasonable delay. In our third contribution, the initial window size is optimized to provide the least upper bound that meets the collision probability constraint for a particular number of contending CPEs. The numerical results validate our analysis
Investigating the Willingness to Pay for a Contributory National Health Insurance Scheme in Saudi Arabia:A Cross-sectional Stated Preference Approach
Background: The Saudi Healthcare System is universal, financed entirely from government revenue principally derived from oil, and is âfree at the point of deliveryâ (non-contributory). However, this system is unlikely to be sustainable in the medium to long term. This study investigates the feasibility and acceptability of healthcare financing reform by examining householdsâ willingness to pay (WTP) for a contributory national health insurance scheme. Methods: Using the contingent valuation method, a pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from 1187 heads of household in Jeddah province over a 5-month period. Multi-stage sampling was employed to select the study sample. Using a double-bounded dichotomous choice with the follow-up elicitation method, respondents were asked to state their WTP for a hypothetical contributory national health insurance scheme. Tobit regression analysis was used to examine the factors associated with WTP and assess the construct validity of elicited WTP. Results: Over two-thirds (69.6%) indicated that they were willing to participate in and pay for a contributory national health insurance scheme. The mean WTP was 50 Saudi Riyal (US$13.33) per household member per month. Tobit regression analysis showed that household size, satisfaction with the quality of public healthcare services, perceptions about financing healthcare, education and income were the main determinants of WTP. Conclusions: This study demonstrates a theoretically valid WTP for a contributory national health insurance scheme by Saudi people. The research shows that willingness to participate in and pay for a contributory national health insurance scheme depends on participant characteristics. Identifying and understanding the main influencing factors associated with WTP are important to help facilitate establishing and implementing the national health insurance scheme. The results could assist policy-makers to develop and set insurance premiums, thus providing an additional source of healthcare financing
Validating AU Microscopii d with Transit Timing Variations
AU Mic is a young (22 Myr) nearby exoplanetary system that exhibits excess
TTVs that cannot be accounted for by the two known transiting planets nor
stellar activity. We present the statistical "validation" of the tentative
planet AU Mic d (even though there are examples of "confirmed" planets with
ambiguous orbital periods). We add 18 new transits and nine midpoint times in
an updated TTV analysis to prior work. We perform the joint modeling of transit
light curves using EXOFASTv2 and extract the transit midpoint times. Next, we
construct an O-C diagram and use Exo-Striker to model the TTVs. We generate TTV
log-likelihood periodograms to explore possible solutions for the period of
planet d and then follow those up with detailed TTV and RV MCMC modeling and
stability tests. We find several candidate periods for AU Mic d, all of which
are near resonances with AU Mic b and c of varying order. Based on our model
comparisons, the most-favored orbital period of AU Mic d is 12.73596+/-0.00793
days (T_{C,d}=2458340.55781+/-0.11641 BJD), which puts the three planets near a
4:6:9 mean-motion orbital resonance. The mass for d is 1.053+/-0.511 M_E,
making this planet Earth-like in mass. If confirmed, AU Mic d would be the
first known Earth-mass planet orbiting a young star and would provide a
valuable opportunity in probing a young terrestrial planet's atmosphere.
Additional TTV observation of the AU Mic system are needed to further constrain
the planetary masses, search for possible transits of AU Mic d, and detect
possible additional planets beyond AU Mic c.Comment: 89 pages, 35 figures, 34 tables. Redid EXOFASTv2 transit modeling to
recover more reasonable stellar posteriors, so redid Exo-Striker TTV modeling
for consistency. Despite these changes, the overall results remain unchanged:
the 12-7-day case is still the most favored. Submitted to AAS Journals on
2023 Feb 9t
iWorksafe: Towards Healthy Workplaces During COVID-19 With an Intelligent Phealth App for Industrial Settings
The recent outbreak of the novel Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) has given rise to diverse health issues due to its high transmission rate and limited treatment options. Almost the whole world, at some point of time, was placed in lock-down in an attempt to stop the spread of the virus, with resulting psychological and economic sequela. As countries start to ease lock-down measures and reopen industries, ensuring a healthy workplace for employees has become imperative. Thus, this paper presents a mobile app-based intelligent portable healthcare (pHealth) tool, called i WorkSafe, to assist industries in detecting possible suspects for COVID-19 infection among their employees who may need primary care. Developed mainly for low-end Android devices, the i WorkSafe app hosts a fuzzy neural network model that integrates data of employeesâ health status from the industryâs database, proximity and contact tracing data from the mobile devices, and user-reported COVID-19 self-test data. Using the built-in Bluetooth low energy sensing technology and K Nearest Neighbor and K-means techniques, the app is capable of tracking usersâ proximity and trace contact with other employees. Additionally, it uses a logistic regression model to calculate the COVID-19 self-test score and a Bayesian Decision Tree model for checking real-time health condition from an intelligent e-health platform for further clinical attention of the employees. Rolled out in an apparel factory on 12 employees as a test case, the pHealth tool generates an alert to maintain social distancing among employees inside the industry. In addition, the app helps employees to estimate risk with possible COVID-19 infection based on the collected data and found that the score is effective in estimating personal health condition of the app user
Validating AU Microscopii d with Transit Timing Variations
AU Mic is a young (22 Myr), nearby exoplanetary system that exhibits excess transit timing variations (TTVs) that cannot be accounted for by the two known transiting planets nor stellar activity. We present the statistical âvalidationâ of the tentative planet AU Mic d (even though there are examples of âconfirmedâ planets with ambiguous orbital periods). We add 18 new transits and nine midpoint times in an updated TTV analysis to prior work. We perform the joint modeling of transit light curves using EXOFASTv2 and extract the transit midpoint times. Next, we construct an O â C diagram and use Exo-Striker to model the TTVs. We generate TTV log-likelihood periodograms to explore possible solutions for dâs period, then follow those up with detailed TTV and radial velocity Markov Chain Monte Carlo modeling and stability tests. We find several candidate periods for AU Mic d, all of which are near resonances with AU Mic b and c of varying order. Based on our model comparisons, the most-favored orbital period of AU Mic d is 12.73596 ± 0.00793 days ( T _C _,d = 2458340.55781 ± 0.11641 BJD), which puts the three planets near 4:6:9 mean-motion resonance. The mass for d is 1.053 ± 0.511 M _â , making this planet Earth-like in mass. If confirmed, AU Mic d would be the first known Earth-mass planet orbiting a young star and would provide a valuable opportunity in probing a young terrestrial planetâs atmosphere. Additional TTV observations of the AU Mic system are needed to further constrain the planetary masses, search for possible transits of AU Mic d, and detect possible additional planets beyond AU Mic c
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