Aspects of economic policy in Egypt 1970-80.

This Thesis analyses Egyptian economic policy making in the 1970s. Despite recommendations for decentralisation and greater use of market forces, only limited reforms occurred. These resulted in a big increase in resources available and the development of new sectors. A central hypothesis put forward is that the interaction of the sectors made reform hard. These were strong incentives to maintain the status quo and not decentralise public sector plus government decision making. These included the need to maintain employment in the public services in view of the overall shortage of jobs. There was also pressure to maintain the country's socialist legacy so as to maintain the loyalty of the urban working classes. The impact of rent seeking activity is looked at as a source of inertia, preventing reform. As a result of these pressures the government felt able to reform the foreign sector but not the domestic economy. Changing the trade and exchange systems would create new opportunities which were not available, or not thought to be available in industry and agriculture. The problems encountered in economic policy making are examined in four broad areas. The investment and planning system is analysed in order to see how consistent and comprehensive development strategy was. Pricing policy is dealt with in relation to cotton and public industry because of its importance in the economy. The implications of these policies are then examined in terms of public finance and the monetary consequences of the budget deficit. Finally, the foreign sector is looked at with special attention to the areas of opportunity: oil revenues, Suez Canal tolls and emigrant remittances. Conclusions are then drawn about the effects of the liberalisation and the reasons why it took such a partial form

On general measures of deformation

Each particle of a continuum is assigned a second order tensor which is taken as a measure of the deformation of some neighborhood of the particle, and which is determined by a functional depending on the configurations of that neighborhood. Two invariance restrictions are imposed on the functional whose values are spatial strain tensors, that is, associated with the deformed configuration. The first requirement is that a time shift and rigid transformation of the deformed configuration leave the spatial deformation tensor unaltered relative to it. The second requires that if particles of distinct continua undergo the same deformation, the corresponding deformation tensors should be the same. For the special case in which the functional depends on the deformation in the smallest neighborhood of a particle, the restrictions imply that the deformation tensors associated with the deformed and reference configurations are isotropic functions of the left and right Cauchy-Green tensors, respectively. Jedem Teilchen eines Kontinuums wird ein Tensor zweiter Stufe als Maß für die Deformation einer gewissen Nachbarschaft dieses Teilchen zugeordnet, der durch ein Funktional bestimmt wird, das von der Konfiguration dieser Nachbarschaft abhängt. Zwei Invarianzbedingungen werden diesem Funktional, dessen Werte räumliche Verzerrungstensoren darstellen, auferlegt, und zwar im Hindblick auf die deformierte Konfiguration. Die erste Forderung besagt, daß eine Zeitverschiebung und eine starre Transformation der deformierten Konfiguration den räumlichen Verzerrungstensor im Hinblick auf diese ungeändert lassen. Die zweite Einschränkung besagt, daß entsprechende Deformationstensoren von Partikeln verschiedener Kontinua, die dieselbe Verformung erlitten haben, gleich sein sollen. Im Spezialfall, daß die Funktionale nur von der Deformation in der nächsten Umgebung des Partikels abhängen, beinhalten die Einschränkungen die Aussage, daß die mit dem deformierten und dem undeformierten Zustand verknüpften Deformationstensoren nur isotrope Funktionen des linken und des rechten Cauchy-Green Tensors sein können.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/41717/1/707_2005_Article_BF01172146.pd

Chronic p53-independent p21 expression causes genomic instability by deregulating replication licensing

The cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p21WAF1/CIP1 (p21) is a cell-cycle checkpoint effector and inducer of senescence, regulated by p53. Yet, evidence suggests that p21 could also be oncogenic, through a mechanism that has so far remained obscure. We report that a subset of atypical cancerous cells strongly expressing p21 showed proliferation features. This occurred predominantly in p53-mutant human cancers, suggesting p53-independent upregulation of p21 selectively in more aggressive tumour cells. Multifaceted phenotypic and genomic analyses of p21-inducible, p53-null, cancerous and near-normal cellular models showed that after an initial senescence-like phase, a subpopulation of p21-expressing proliferating cells emerged, featuring increased genomic instability, aggressiveness and chemoresistance. Mechanistically, sustained p21 accumulation inhibited mainly the CRL4–CDT2 ubiquitin ligase, leading to deregulated origin licensing and replication stress. Collectively, our data reveal the tumour-promoting ability of p21 through deregulation of DNA replication licensing machinery—an unorthodox role to be considered in cancer treatment, since p21 responds to various stimuli including some chemotherapy drugs

Who Said or What Said? Estimating Ideological Bias in Views Among Economists

There exists a long-standing debate about the influence of ideology in economics. Surprisingly, however, there is no concrete empirical evidence to examine this critical issue. Using an online randomized controlled experiment involving economists in 19 countries, we examine the effect of ideological bias on views among economists. Participants were asked to evaluate statements from prominent economists on different topics, while source attribution for each statement was randomized without participants’ knowledge. For each statement, participants either received a mainstream source, an ideologically different less-/non-mainstream source, or no source. We find that changing source attributions from mainstream to less-/non-mainstream, or removing them, significantly reduces economists’ reported agreement with statements. Using a model of Bayesian updating we examine two competing hypotheses as potential explanations for these results: unbiased Bayesian updating versus ideologically-biased Bayesian updating. While we find no evidence in support of unbiased updating, our results are consistent with biased Bayesian updating. More specifically, we find that changing/removing sources (1) has no impact on economists’ reported confidence with their evaluations; (2) similarly affects experts/non-experts in relevant areas; and (3) affects those at the far right of the political spectrum much more significantly than those at the far left. Finally, we find significant heterogeneity in our results by gender, country, PhD completion country, research area, and undergraduate major, with patterns consistent with the existence of ideological bias

Island Stories: Growing Digital Heritage: The story so far 2015-03-27

<p>Presentation slides prepared for the Pararchive Community Showcase Event Presentation on the 27th of March 2015 in Leeds.</p