The Relationship Between the Size of Regulatory Outputs and Regulatory Taskspracticed by the Jordanian Audit Bureau and the Achieved Affluence of the State’s Public TreasuryThrough the Bureau’s Efforts

This study generally aimed to investigate the relationship between the size of regulatory outputs and the control tasks performed by the Jordanian Audit Bureau and  the achieved affluence of the state’s public treasury through the Bureau’s efforts. In order to accomplish the objective of this study, the researcher conducted an analytical study adopting the descriptive analytical approach. That was done through the use of the Audit Bureau’s data and reports reguarding the size of clarifications, control books, previous auditing on the spending documents, subsequent audit of accounts, participation with committees, and the affluence accomplished during the period (2008-2014). All of which were presented in the Bureau’s reports during the period (2008-2014), where the statistical analysis of the independent variable’s relationship with the dependent variable in connection with the realized affluence. The results of the study have shown the lack of a statistically significant relationship between each of the clarifications, controlbooks, review memos and subsequent audit, participation committees, with the abundance achieved through the Bureau’s efforts. On the other hand, the findings of the study concluded the presence of a statistically significant relationship between each of the previous audit on spending documents and the profusion achieved through the Bureau’s efforts. Keywords:Audit Bureau,The affluence achieved, Clarifications and control books,Previous control,Subsequent audit of accounts,committees

An Evaluation of Islamic versus Conventional Banks’ Efficiency: A Global Study

The study compares the efficiency of Islamic and conventional banks, during the period 2006-2012, by employing a non-parametric approach- the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). In order to minimise the bias resulting from the inherent dependency in the first stage of the DEA, the DEA outcomes were replaced with the bootstrapped estimators and replicated them 500 times. Accordingly, confidence intervals are constructed for efficiency measures, which subsequently, improved further the accuracy of the findings and provided more reliable arguments for policy implications. The study applies a two-stage Data Envelopment Analysis. The first stage of the DEA compares banks based on their Overall Technical Efficiency (OTE) and its components (Pure Technical Efficiency (PTE) and Scale Efficiency (SE)). Although proven to be more resilient during the financial crisis (Farooq and Zaheer, 2015), the research found that Islamic banks to be normally on a par with their conventional counterparts in terms of PTE and that they were significantly higher in terms of OTE and SE . In addition, according to the study’s results, both Islamic and conventional banks suffered from managerial underperformance rather than a failure in operating at optimal production levels. In other words, Islamic and conventional banks were managerially inefficient in controlling their operating costs and utilising their resources. The second stage of the DEA, which accounts for the country- and bank- specific factors, confirms the findings that there was no significant difference in PTE between Islamic and conventional banks. Moreover, the findings imply that Islamic banks have no significance on pooled PTE and show no significant difference in PTE when compared to conventional banks during the entire period of the study including the financial crisis (2007-2009). In the light of the study’s empirical findings, Islamic banks should explore the benefits of moving to more diversified investments and tools in order to make use of their liquidity. Moreover, Islamic banks have to employ more solid risk management techniques in order to limit the number of risks, including credit risk, market risk, liquidity risk and operational risk, which may arise in the shari’ah banking industry. The research is extended to study the PTE determinants of four regions, namely, MENA, East Asia and Pacific, South Asia, and Europe and Central Asia. The outcomes show that PTE had a different significance for each region’s determinants related mainly to the levels of the indicators of governance, namely, Voice Accountability (VACC) and Regulation Quality (REGQ). The findings suggested that the more developed and democratic countries were favourable to banks having more operations that are efficient. In addition, these countries’ excessive regulation and supervision (i.e. limited financial freedom), encouraged financial institutions to create unclear new instruments and misjudge the risks. These resulted in the banks being less efficient. The study found, also, that there were different determinants for Islamic and conventional banks operating in Muslim and non-Muslim countrie

The Safe Evolution of Liposuction into Liposculpture

Liposuction was described in the 1920s & popularised in 1977 by Illouz. He developed smaller diameter blunt cannulas. To add safety he also developed the wet technique to reduce blood loss. Tumescent anaesthesia described by Klein in 1987 made large volume liposuction safer allowing for more refined body contouring through significantly minimising blood loss. Liposuction journey started as mechanical debulking that evolved over the last 4 decades into a refined high definition body contouring and proportioning surgery, thus making sculpturing a shape of figurine possible. To achieve such high definition body sculpting technology including Laser, and Vaser not only added safety, however, they also achieved outcomes that cannot be matched with the older methods of liposuction, under local anaesthesia. In this chapter we aspire to discuss the journey of how liposuction evolved into body contouring surgery with large volume lipo-aspirates yet more safely

Body Contouring and VASER Technology, the Fourth Dimension

Body contouring surgery encompasses several facets. However, it is only in the last 15 years that body-sculpting technology has been incorporated in body contouring on a larger scale. This has added further refinements to the aesthetic outcomes of body contouring surgery. Advances in VASER technology meant it has become synonymous with the art of lipo-sculpture, body sculpting and body contouring. When performing body contouring, the first step in liposculpturing the tissues is to emulsify the fat using ultrasound resonance. The emulsified fat is then aspirated with a power-assisted suction device, and in appropriately selected patients, surgically excising the skin excess to achieve the desired results. It is important not to forget the other added bonuses of VASER technology, which includes reduced surgeon’s fatigue, enhanced skin retraction and reduced downtime; all being achieved at a high safety margin. Body contouring does not stop at emulsifying fat and aspirating it. Fat transfer in the selected patients has become an integral part of body contouring surgery. This includes patients wishing breast augmentation and buttock augmentation utilising their own fat, thereby reducing any concerns they may have with using silicone-based implants, whilst achieving cosmetically pleasing long-lasting outcomes. Surgical excision where technology cannot overcome skin excess and laxity adds to the aesthetic outcomes in selected cases, thus bringing to fruition the hybrid surgical approach popularised in the twenty-first century. One example of many is incorporating VASER lipo-sculpture with abdominoplasty

Optimal Investment of the Unconfined Aquifer Adjacent to the Syrian Coast, which Occupies the Coastal (plain) Area between the AL-Sin and AL-Ross Rivers (Syria)

The demand for fresh water in coastal areas is increasing because of increased economic activity. The Syrian coast faces this problem, and it is necessary to solve it in an appropriate scientific manner. The research area is located in the Syrian coast between the Sin and Rous river. It has an area of 72 km2. The aim of the research is to assess the behavior of the aquifer system in the area of water exchange with sea water. After the construction of a numerical model of the freshwater layer - the sea using MODFLOW code within the GMS program. After calibration, the scenario of water resources without sea water intrusion was the scenario of drilling 4 groups of wells each group includes 5 wells, with an average of 50-300 m3/day, which led to an increase in the flow of wells in the region to about 17800 m3/day.   يزداد الطلب على المياه العذبة في المناطق الساحلية بسبب زيادة النشاط الاقتصادي، مما يستدعي زيادة ضخ المياه الجوفية العذبة لتلبية تلك الاحتياجات، وهذا يسبب هبوط مناسيب المياه الجوفية وخللاً في التوازن الهيدروديناميكي بين المياه الجوفية العذبة ومياه البحر. ويواجه الساحل السوري هذه المشكلة، ومن الضروري حلها بأسلوب علمي مناسب. تقع المنطقة المدروسة في الساحل السوري بين نهري السن والروس، يحدها البحر المتوسط من الغرب، وطريق عام اللاذقية – طرطوس من الشرق. وتبلغ مساحتها 72 كم2. يهدف البحث إلى تقييم سلوك نظام طبقة المياه الجوفية الحرة في منطقة التبادل المائي بينها وبين مياه البحر. وبعد بناء نموذج عددي لطبقة المياه العذبة – البحر باستخدام كود MODFLOW ضمن برنامج GMS، وبعد معايرته تم اقتراح سيناريو لاستثمار الموارد المائية في منطقة البحث دون حدوث التداخل بين مياه البحر والمياه العذبة من خلال سيناريو حفر 4 مجموعات آبار، تضم كل منها 5 آبار، إضافة إلى آبار الأهالي بتصريف 50-300 m3/day، مما أدى إلى زيادة تدفق الآبار في المنطقة إلى حوالى 17800 m3/day

Clinical considerations and challenges in TAV-in-TAV procedures

Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) has emerged as a viable treatment for aortic valve disease, including low-risk patients. However, as TAVR usage increases, concerns about long-term durability and the potential for addition interventions have arisen. Transcatheter aortic valve (TAV)-in-TAV procedures have shown promise in selected patients in numerous registries, offering a less morbid alternative to TAVR explantation. In this review, the authors aimed to comprehensively review the experience surrounding TAV-in-TAV, summarize available data, discuss pre-procedural planning, highlight associated challenges, emphasize the importance of coronary obstruction assessment and provide insights into the future of this technique

Technical efficiency in banks: a review of methods, recent innovations and future research agenda

Technical efficiency in banking is a critical aspect of the financial industry and has been widely studied using various measurement techniques. This systematic literature review offers a comprehensive examination of 305 studies on the application of technical efficiency measurement techniques in both Islamic and conventional banking sectors from 1989 to 2019. Our comprehensive analysis not only provides a broad view of the efficiency measurement literature but also outlines a future research agenda. Despite the extensive research in this field, several issues remain unresolved, including input–output selection, a comparison of efficiency between Islamic and conventional banks, limited cross-country studies, and a lack of exploration into the impact of regulation and Shariah principles. To address these gaps, this review highlights the most commonly used methods, variables, and findings and provides three key recommendations for future research. Three key themes emerge from our examination. First, there is a need to better understand and the application of new frontier techniques other than the traditional methods, which currently dominate the existing literature. Second, the intermediation approach is the most frequently used in variable selection, thus more studies with comparative findings with applications of production and value-added approaches are suggested. Third, the most frequently used input variables are ‘labor’, ‘deposits’ and ‘capital’, whilst ‘loans’ and ‘other earning assets’ are the most popular output variables. We recommend three vital directions for future research: (i) non-interest expenses to be included amongst the inputs, while non-interest income should be added to the list of outputs, especially when estimating efficiency scores of Islamic banks. (ii) The impact of environmental variables such as, inter alia, Shariah principles, country-specific factors, and management quality is suggested to be considered simultaneously in models measuring and comparing the efficiency of Islamic and conventional banks. (iii) The selection of performance metrics employed should be expanded to include both the standard efficiency scores and the Malmquist Total Factor Productivity Index (TFP). The paper concludes with research needs and suggests directions for future research

Spectrum of genetic disorders and gene variants in the United Arab Emirates national population: insights from the CTGA database

Like many other Arab countries, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a relatively high prevalence of genetic disorders. Here we present the first review and analysis of all genetic disorders and gene variants reported in Emirati nationals and hosted on the Catalogue for Transmission Genetics in Arabs (CTGA), an open-access database hosting bibliographic data on human gene variants associated with inherited or heritable phenotypes in Arabs. To date, CTGA hosts 665 distinct genetic conditions that have been described in Emiratis, 621 of which follow a clear Mendelian inheritance. Strikingly, over half of these are extremely rare according to global prevalence rates, predominantly with an autosomal recessive mode of inheritance. This is likely due to the relatively high consanguinity rates within the Emirati population. The 665 conditions include disorders that are unique to the Emirati population, as well as clearly monogenic disorders that have not yet been mapped to a causal genetic locus. We also describe 1,365 gene variants reported in Emiratis, most of which are substitutions and over half are classified as likely pathogenic or pathogenic. Of these, 235 had not been reported on the international databases dbSNP and Clinvar, as of December 2022. Further analysis of this Emirati variant dataset allows a comparison of clinical significance as reported by Clinvar and CTGA, where the latter is derived from the study cited. A total of 307 pathogenic/likely pathogenic variants from CTGA’s Emirati dataset, were classified as benign, variants of uncertain significance, or were missing a clinical significance or had not been reported by Clinvar. In conclusion, we present here the spectrum of genetic disorders and gene variants reported in Emiratis. This review emphasizes the importance of ethnic databases such as CTGA in addressing the underrepresentation of Arab variant data in international databases and documenting population-specific discrepancies in variant interpretation, reiterating the value of such repositories for clinicians and researchers, especially when dealing with rare disorders