Making the Economic Agreement Between Gulf Countries Valuable: The Way Forward for the Harmonization of their Corporate Financial Reporting

Economic agents tend to maximize their welfare given a set of information, and for investors, accounting data constitute an essential element of the set. Moreover, if this set is homogeneous, comparisons can easily be established, thus inflecting positively on allocation of resources. Although there is an economic agreement endorsed by the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council, obstacles remain to be overcome, so as to fulfill the objectives of the agreement. It is argued in the present paper that, harmonization of accounting would, enhance the pace toward increasing trade and investment between these states. The present state of applying nondomestic accounting practices, is seen as a force which has the potentials of encouraging the Gulf states to develop their customized accounting practices. However, some forces may work in the opposite direction

Reservoir quality and K-Ar age dating of the pre-Khuff section of Kuwait

ABSTRACT Based on studies of petrographic thin sections from core and cutting samples, the pre-Permian siliciclastics in four deep wells in southern Kuwait were found to be tight. Three of these wells are located on the crestal region of the Burgan Arch, and one on the Umm Gudair anticline. These clastics were encountered beneath a thin brick-red shale of unknown thickness, immediately below the pre-Khuff unconformity at the base of the Permian-Triassic Khuff Formation. The pre-Khuff clastics range in thickness from a few tens of feet to more than 4,000 ft, and overlie a Proterozoic argillite (Economic Basement). Based on Illite Age Analysis (IAA) of samples from cores, the depositional K-Ar age of the pre-Khuff clastics is estimated to be younger than 509 Ma (90 percent confidence interval: 544–481 Ma, i.e. Cambrian-Early Ordovician). The argillite was uplifted through the 300°C isotherm at about 611 Ma (90% confidence interval: 635-588 Ma, i.e Late Proterozoic); its deposition and metamorphism preceded this date. During the Paleozoic, the pre-Khuff clastics were buried to depths of 10,000–15,000 ft, but were subsequently uplifted in the Late Paleozoic. IAA diagenetic K-Ar ages of the Economic Basement (421 Ma; 90 percent confidence interval: 442-397 Ma; Late Ordovician-Early Devonian) and pre-Khuff clastics (369 Ma; 90 percent confidence interval: 404–337 Ma, i.e. Devonian-Early Carboniferous) indicate that by these times the pre-Khuff section was already deposited and undergoing burial diagenesis. The interpretation of gravity data indicates that in Paleozoic basinal regions (e.g. between the Burgan Arch and Umm Gudair Anticline), the Paleozoic sedimentary section is likely to be more complete and may exceed 10,000 ft in thickness.</jats:p

Reduced Regional Brain Cortical Thickness in Patients with Heart Failure

Autonomic, cognitive, and neuropsychologic deficits appear in heart failure (HF) subjects, and these compromised functions depend on cerebral cortex integrity in addition to that of subcortical and brainstem sites. Impaired autoregulation, low cardiac output, sleep-disordered-breathing, hypertension, and diabetic conditions in HF offer considerable potential to affect cortical areas by loss of neurons and glia, which would be expressed as reduced cortical thicknesses. However, except for gross descriptions of cortical volume loss/injury, regional cortical thickness integrity in HF is unknown. Our goal was to assess regional cortical thicknesses across the brain in HF, compared to control subjects.We examined localized cortical thicknesses in 35 HF and 61 control subjects with high-resolution T1-weighted images (3.0-Tesla MRI) using FreeSurfer software, and assessed group differences with analysis-of-covariance (covariates; age, gender; p<0.05; FDR). Significantly-reduced cortical thicknesses appeared in HF over controls in multiple areas, including the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes, more markedly on the left side, within areas that control autonomic, cognitive, affective, language, and visual functions.Heart failure subjects show reduced regional cortical thicknesses in sites that control autonomic, cognitive, affective, language, and visual functions that are deficient in the condition. The findings suggest chronic tissue alterations, with regional changes reflecting loss of neurons and glia, and presumably are related to earlier-described axonal changes. The pathological mechanisms contributing to reduced cortical thicknesses likely include hypoxia/ischemia, accompanying impaired cerebral perfusion from reduced cardiac output and sleep-disordered-breathing and other comorbidities in HF