Political Violence and Excess Liquidity in Egypt

In this article we estimate a time-series model of excess liquidity in the Egyptian banking sector. While financial liberalisation and financial stability are found to have reduced excess liquidity, these effects have been offset by an increase in the number of violent political incidents arising from conflict between radical Islamic groups and the Egyptian state. The link between political events and financial outcomes provides a rationale for economic policy interventions by the international community in response to increases in political instability

The Effect of a Neuro-Linguistic Programming Modeled-Reading Comprehension Strategy on Special Education Students

This study was designed to test the effectiveness of a Neuro-Linguistic Programming modeled-reading comprehension strategy. This lower order thinking strategy treatment was tested on seven special education students from three suburban middle schools in western New York. This treatment was intended to develop the subject\u27s ability to create images from written language. First, students drew pictures of sentences read to them by their teacher. Next, the teacher asked students questions about the visual, auditory and kinesthetic submodalities of their pictures; students were urged to add missing details. Once students could draw and sequence pictures adequately, they were instructed to make pictures in their mind of sentences read. When they were able to comprehend a paragraph at a time, they continued the strategy with silent reading. Subjects were pre- and posttested using the Ekwall Informal Reading Inventory (1986). A related t-test indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the pre and post test results

Bursting neurons signal input slope

Brief bursts of high-frequency action potentials represent a common firing mode of pyramidal neurons, and there are indications that they represent a special neural code. It is therefore of interest to determine whether there are particular spatial and temporal features of neuronal inputs that trigger bursts. Recent work on pyramidal cells indicates that bursts can be initiated by a specific spatial arrangement of inputs in which there is coincident proximal and distal dendritic excitation (Larkum et al., 1999). Here we have used a computational model of an important class of bursting neurons to investigate whether there are special temporal features of inputs that trigger bursts. We find that when a model pyramidal neuron receives sinusoidally or randomly varying inputs, bursts occur preferentially on the positive slope of the input signal. We further find that the number of spikes per burst can signal the magnitude of the slope in a graded manner. We show how these computations can be understood in terms of the biophysical mechanism of burst generation. There are several examples in the literature suggesting that bursts indeed occur preferentially on positive slopes (Guido et al., 1992; Gabbiani et al., 1996). Our results suggest that this selectivity could be a simple consequence of the biophysics of burst generation. Our observations also raise the possibility that neurons use a burst duration code useful for rapid information transmission. This possibility could be further examined experimentally by looking for correlations between burst duration and stimulus variables

Pathogenesis, prevention, and management of bleeding and thrombosis in patients with liver diseases

Patients with liver diseases may develop alterations in all components of the hemostatic system. Thrombocytopenia, low levels of coagulation factors and inhibitors, low levels of fibrinolytic proteins, and increased levels of endothelial-derived proteins such as von Willebrand factor are all part of the coagulopathy of liver disease. Due to concomitant changes in pro- and antihemostatic drivers, the net effects of these complex hemostatic changes have long been unclear. According to current concepts, the hemostatic system of patients with liver disease is in an unstable balance, which explains the occurrence of both bleeding and thrombotic complications. This review will discuss etiology and management of bleeding and thrombosis in liver disease and will outline unsolved clinical questions. In addition, we will discuss the role of intrahepatic activation of coagulation for progression of liver disease, a novel paradigm with potential consequences for the general management of patients with liver disease.</p

Climate Change and Urban Poor: Water-related Behavior in Jakarta

Jakarta is a growing urban centre that is facing two problems: climate change and urban poverty. City authority of Jakarta has yet to prepare comprehensive public policies to address the two challenges of the city that has over 9 million population.  As a coastal city, Jakarta has a coastline up to 25 km long. The average elevation of land surface is 7 meters above sea level.  Around 40 percent of land surface are below the sea level. There are thirteen rivers flowing rainwater from high land of West Java through the city running into Jakarta Bay. Therefore the threat of climate change is not only due to rising sea levels but also flooding and drought.  It is estimated that around 1 million of the urban poor experiencing the vulnerability since most of them are illegally occupying the low land surrounding riversides.  The extreme weather is now happen frequently both in urban and rural area.  Since poor farmers and farm workers have no saving, some of them have trying to get the job in cities such as Jakarta. Their daily income is around USD 6 to USD 11. This article discusses how the urban poor act toward the impact of climate change. Since the urban poor have only subsistence income, they choose to live at the riversides in the all part of the city. They utilize the water resources for many purposes, utilize the short underground water table and also dump the waste into the river. This study discusses what the poor urban know and do regarding the water resources and its relationship with any evidence of climate change impact and vice versa. As an attempt to explore the possibility of linkages with climate change as an anthropogenic behaviour, this study tries to  develop how the current water governance effectively address the proble

Blood Markers of Portal Hypertension Are Associated with Blood Loss and Transfusion Requirements during Orthotopic Liver Transplantation

There is increasing evidence that portal hypertension plays a major role in bleeding risk during orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT). We investigated the association between preoperative blood levels of von Willebrand factor (VWF) and soluble CD163 (sCD163), which are established markers of portal hypertension, and blood loss and transfusion requirements during OLT. We measured levels of VWF and sCD163 in preoperative serum samples of 168 adult patients undergoing a primary OLT between 1998 and 2012. Preoperative levels of VWF and sCD163 correlated with the model of end-stage liver disease (MELD) score (r = 0.414, p < 0.001 and r = 0.382, p < 0.001, respectively). Patients with high VWF or sCD163 levels (VWF and sCD163 levels above the median) had a substantially increased risk of needing red blood cell transfusion compared with patients with low VWF or sCD163 levels (VWF and sCD163 levels below the median) (odds ratio 3.5 [95% confidence interval, CI 1.7-7.0] and 2.3 [95% CI 1.1-4.5], respectively). Blood loss was highest in patients with both high VWF or sCD163 levels and a high preoperative international normalized ratio. Elevated blood levels of markers of portal hypertension are associated with increased blood loss and transfusion requirements during OLT and support the notion that portal hypertension is an important contributor to perioperative blood loss