The response of remittances inflows to asymmetric oil price shocks in Egypt

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore and analyse the dynamic relationship between remittances inflows of Egyptians working abroad and asymmetric oil price shocks. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a vector autoregressive (VAR) model to explain the impulse response functions (IRFs) and the forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD). The rationale behind using these tools is its ability to examine the dynamic effects of our variables of interest. Findings The impulse response functions confirmed that remittance inflows have various responses to asymmetric oil price shocks. For instance, inflowing remittances increase in response to positive oil price shocks, while it decreases in response to negative oil price shocks. Also, the results indicate that the responses are significant in the short and medium-run and insignificant in the long run. The magnitude of these responses reaches its peak or trough in the third year. Further, the variance decomposition reveals that oil price decreases are more influential than oil price increases. Originality/value This means that remittances inflows in Egypt are pro-cyclical with oil price shocks. That explained by the fact that more than one-half of those remittances sent from GCC countries where real economic growth is very pro-cyclical with the oil prices. This empirical assessment will help policymakers to determine the behaviour of remittances and highlights the impact of different kinds of oil prices shocks on remittances. Unlike the little existing literature, this study is the first study applied the VAR model using a novel dataset spanning 1960-2016

Impulse Response with Correlation Study of a Broadband Bended Wearable Monopole Antenna

In this paper, the impulse response of a wide band flexible circular monopole antenna is presented. The antenna is fabricated on liquid crystalline polymer flexible substrate with a compact geometry that makes it suitable for wearable applications under different bending conditions. The antenna is fed by coplanar waveguide transmission line and has a compact total size of 40 × 22 mm2. The presented antenna has a good performance over the operating frequency range for straight and bent configurations. The design principals, simulation and experimental results are presented in this work

Comparison response patterns on landline and cell phone in a call back survey: effects of demographic characteristics and lag days

The Asthma Call-back Survey (ACBS) is conducted after the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey by calling BRFSS respondents who reported ever being diagnosed with asthma. To find response patterns and increase ACBS response rates, we first examined whether obtaining consents during the BRFSS survey could increase call back response rates by reducing the refusal and break-off. Then, we assessed how the lag days between BRFSS and ACBS interviews affected response rates. BRFSS cell phone respondents agreed more often to being called back than did landline respondents (75.5 vs. 70.9 percent). However, when respondents were contacted for ACBS, the cell phone response rate was lower than landline response rate (43.4 vs. 47.0 percent), except among males aged 25–34 years, for which the cell phone response rate was 2.1 percent higher than the landline response rate. ACBS response rate for landline and cell phone response were highest if the callback was within 2 days of BRFSS interviews (92.3 vs. 88.8 percent). As lag days increased, the response rate decreased. The cell phone response rate showed a sharper drop; after 2 weeks, the response rate gap between landline and cell phone samples reached 17.3 percent

New Insights on Avoiding the Causes of Projects Delays: A Framework

In this paper, we study and analyze the reasons behind the delay of some projects. Our aim is shed light on how one reduces the effect of the different obstacles and improves achievement either in quality or time. Different challenges play the main reasons in the stalled project including planning, designing, construction, and weak leaders or poor administrative decisions. We focus on developing a framework that helps in improving the management of the projects and finishing the projects on time. This includes developing a contingency plan and coordination mechanism between internal and external stakeholders. Following the steps of the methodology will help project managers to avoid project delay and solve the problems of the staled ones. Finally, we represent some managerial insights and recommendations that related parties should follow with the projects

Pubertal development of penile Nitric Oxide Synthase (NOS)-containing nerve fibers in the rat

Objectives: To evaluate the expression of nitric oxide synthase (NOS)-containing nerve fibers in penile tissue in different age groups in the rat and to measure serum testosterone levels during this developmental process. Material and Methods: Fifteen male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats divided into 3 equally numbered groups of different age (40 days (d), 54d and 65d) were used in this study. Penile erection was evaluated using cavernous nerve electrostimulation. Before sacrificing the rats, a penile midshaft specimen was taken for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) diaphorase staining and blood samples were collected to evaluate the testosterone levels. Results: Electrostimulation of the cavernous nerve revealed no significant difference in the maximal intracavernous pressure in the different age groups (44.9 ± 6.4, 54.8 ± 24.8, 45.9 ± 16.8 cm H2O, respectively; p>0.05), but the latency of the response to electrostimulation was significantly shorter in 54d and 65d than in 40d-old rats (5.4 ± 0.8 and 5.0 ± 0.7 vs. 9.0 ± 5.4 sec., respectively;

Gravity observations at Sinai Peninsula and its geophysical and geodetic applications

AbstractSouth Sinai is an interesting region from both tectonic and seismological settings. Tectonically, Sinai Peninsula is strongly dominated by its active boundaries due to its location at the triple junction among the Gulf of Suez rift, the Aqaba–Levant transform fault and the Red Sea Rift. Moreover, reported seismological activities along the three tectonic boundaries indicate its continuous activities.It is thus of great interest to delineate the subsurface geological structure responsible of its tectonic settings and its relation to the seismological activity. Therefore, terrestrial gravity observation has been carried out to figure out the sub-surface structure representing its tectonic settings.On the other hand, the location of Sinai Peninsula between Gulf of Suez, Gulf of Aqepa and Red Sea has made the satellite altimetry data an optimum tool to determine the Gravity sources on the marine regions bounding the Sinai region. Finally, temporal gravity variation of the GRACE satellite mission, launched in 2003 gives the opportunity to monitor its temporal gravity variation on regional scale. Temporal gravity variation from GRACE demonstrates any possible mass redistribution along the pounding tectonic settings and its relation to seismicity.Observed gravity map shows significant gravity anomalies attributed to tectonic and seismicity. Satellite altimetry and gravity data are considered to be a valuable source of data to determine the offshore subsurface structure. Temporal gravity variations from GRACE shows important zones of mass redistribution attributed to its new tectonics and its relation to the seismological activities. Integrating all available data sheds more light on the geodynamic behavior of the selected region and its relation to the seismic activities

Cooling Rate and Fibrous Type Striated Deformations Effects on the Mechanical Properties of Sn 8.6 wt. % Zn Alloy

Sn-Zn alloy has been taken as one of the most important lead free solder alloys due to the toxicity and the alpha radiation of lead impurities. The influence of cooling rate on the mechanical and structural properties of Sn ndash 8.6 wt. % Zn lead free solder alloy was studied.nbsp The microstructure of the quenched and slowly cooled samples of Sn ndash Zn alloy was examined by X ndash rays analysis and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). There is an appearance of fibrous type striated deformations on the surfaces of the quenched samples more than those on the surfaces of the slowly cooled samples. The hardening parameters were obtained through stress-strain relations in the temperature range 333-393K for slowly cooled and quenched samples. The quenching samples indicated an improvement in the mechanical properties. The energy activated the rate controlling mechanisms has been calculated and found to be 17.85 and 24.57 kJ/mol for slowly cooled and quenched samples respectively. These values were found to be close to those reported for the grain boundary sliding mechanism in Sn-based alloys.nbs

A proposed cloud-based billers hub using secured e-payments system

Automation of several payment processes from start to end is a challenging task, particularly when multiple payments from online and offline billers are involved. In this paper, we introduced a new aggregator system to combine all billing system types, in which it is possible to pay invoices electronically. The proposed aggregator system was designed to be employed in a cloud-based Billers Hub (CBBH) developed by the central banks. Furthermore, many applications can be realized such as; deposit e-money, withdrawal e-money, and other applications. A Gateway translator is used to apply authentication rules, security, and privacy. The proposed system was employed in the Jordanian payment gateway and successfully fulfills its purpose