Mohammed A. El-Saidi

The Current State of Female Leadership in the United Arab Emirates

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to research the state of affairs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the presence (or absence) of women in senior business leadership positions, and to investigate where they are located within organizations (e.g. board members, chief officers, vice presidents, top management, division or unit heads).Design/methodology/approach – This is a quantitative gender analysis of 954 organizations; based on data available from the Zawya database that tracks information about public and private companies in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.Findings – Women are still underrepresented in senior company and top department leadership positions, however, they are found slightly (but not significantly) more in departmental leadership, pseudo services and hospitality industries, and in smaller and public companies.Research limitations/implications – The database utilized did not contain completed company data; specifically any response variable; hence, the study was d...

Association of benign prostate hyperplasia with polymorphisms in VDR, CYP17, and SRD5A2 genes among Lebanese men.

BACKGROUND The aim of the study was to investigate any associations between benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the VDR gene (FokI, BsmI, ApaI and TaqαI loci) and the CYP17 gene (MspA1I locus), as well as TA repeat polymorphism in SRD5A2 gene among Lebanese men. MATERIALS AND METHODS DNA extracted from blood of 68 subjects with confirmed BPH and 79 age-matched controls was subjected to PCR/PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. The odds ra=tio (OR) of having a genotype and the relative risk (RR) of developing BPH for having the genotype were calculated and the alleles were designated risk-bearing or protective. RESULTS Our data indicated that the A and B alleles of the VDR ApaI and BsmI SNPs were highly associated with increased risk of BPH (p=0.0168 and 0.0002, respectively). Moreover, 63% of the controls compared to 43% of the subjects with BPH were homozygous for none of the risk-bearing alleles (p=0.0123) whereas 60% of the controls and 28% of the subjects with BPH were homozygous for two or more protective alleles (p<0.0001). CONCLUSIONS For the first time, our study demonstrated that ApaI and BsmI of the VDR gene are associated with risk of BPH among Lebanese men. Our study also indicated that overall polymorphism profile of all the genes involved in prostate physiology could be a better predictor of BPH risk.

Characterization of a general class of life-testing models

In this paper we establish a characterization theorem for a general class of life-testing models based on a relationship between conditional expectation and the failure rate function. As a simple application of the theorem, we characterize the gamma, Weibull, and Gompertz distributions, since they have many probabilistic and statistical properties useful in both biometry and engineering reliability.

Some moment properties and limit theorems of the reversed generalized logistic distribution with applications

In this paper we discuss an extended form of the logistic distribution and refer to it as the reversed generalized logistic distribution. We study some moment properties, and derive exact and explicit formulas for the mean, median, mode, variance, coefficients of skewness and kurtosis, and percentage points of this distribution. In addition, we study its limiting distributions as the shape parameter tends to zero or infinity. We also discuss some possible applications in bioassays through logistic regression approach.

Long‐term stability of thyroid hormones and DNA in blood spots kept under varying storage conditions

Background:  Congenital hypothyroidism is screened using blood spotted on filter paper that may be transported from remote areas to central testing facilities. However, storage conditions and transportation may affect sample quality.

Implementation of a strategic group map and balanced scorecard in a university setting

A balanced scorecard reports those performance indicators that have been derived from the institutions mission and stakeholder analysis and are aligned across all functions in the organisation. A comprehensive review of the literature reveals that most universities do not use a strategic map to show the causal linkages among the performance indicators. Drawing from the emerging performance excellence paradigm and research in strategic management, a strategic group map and implementation model are proposed from which a balanced scorecard is developed for higher education. Based on the application of these tools, the university achieved its first significant improvement in strategic indicators in over five years.

Modeling uncertainty in periodic random environment: applications to environmental studies

Recently an active research on the effects of a random environment of periodic nature on the properties of uncertainty has been conducted by a number of authors. It reflects the resulting random variables and associated random processes, and involves theoretical research, writing and implementing models and algorithms. The research aspects are focused on the study of relevant uncertain quantities that result from the impact of a periodic random environment. This paper presents specific probability models relevant to environmental studies, with constant periodicity in additive models, and with periodicity with a driving non-stationary components. Some applications are briefly noticed. In particular, it is shown that varying effects are modeled by extended in time Poisson trials with periodically changed components. Such processes appear when modeling natural disasters like tornados, hurricane activities, etc. with a clear seasonal pattern. A representation of the waiting time up to the occurrence of such an event as a sum of independent components may be of considerable interest in the analysis of various environmental characteristics of periodic nature. Illustrations are given. We expect these results to be useful for application in environmental studies, insurance and risk, as well as for developing suitable approaches for statistical data analysis. Copyright

On probability distributions with accumulating failure rates in periodic random environment

The concept of driving-periodic random environment reflecting an accumulated risk is developed. We suggest that the random environment has effects on accumulating and increasing the risk that some event will happen within any specific period of length c > 0. The waiting time until the event occurs defines a random variable of a special kind whose probability distribution and additional properties are studied. The form of this probability distribution is derived, and some useful representations of related random variables are obtained. Phenomena of this type appear in a series of environmental, maintenance and financial processes. An illustrative example is briefly discussed.

Stability of total and free prostate specific antigen in serum submitted to intermittent cold storage conditions

The goal of this study was to determine the stability of Total Prostrate Specific antigen (PSA-T) and Free Prostrate Specific Antigen (PSA-F) in archival serum stored at 4°C and −20°C and subjected to temperature shift due to interruption in power supply. Our study showed that PSA-T was stable up to 285 days and PSA-F was stable for 158 days under these conditions. Since power supply interruption is an unavoidable problem in developing nations, our study has implication on the validity of measurement of PSA-T and PSA-F in serum that was not properly stored due to emergency situations and for certain types of retrospective studies.

Overall population growth in periodic environment

We consider populations with an exponential growth or decay and random life time. We assume that the calendar time is subdivided into consecutive time periods of equal length. After successive completion of the nth growth period, with probability α, there will be an accumulated overall population cn, (c>1 means growth, c 1. We elaborate on the properties of the random variable M and discuss possible applications to environmental studies.