A referral strategy based on three criteria leads to a diagnosis of axial SpA in approximately 35% of patients with CBP and is applicable across countries and geographical locales with presumably different levels of expertise in axial SpA.

No abstract

Iran has invariably been under the growing public health threat of cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL), a significant barrier to local development that hinders the prevention and control efforts toward eliminating the disease. So far, no comprehensive and in-depth epidemiological analysis of the CL situation has been carried out nationwide. This study aimed to employ advanced statistical models to analyze the data collected through the Center for Diseases Control and Prevention of Communicable Diseases during 1989–2020. However, we emphasized the current trends, 2013–2020, to study temporal and spatial CL patterns. In the country, the epidemiology of CL is incredibly intricate due to various factors. This fact indicates that the basic infrastructure, the preceding supports, and the implementation plan related to preventive and therapeutic measures need crucial support. The leishmaniasis situation analysis is consistent with desperate requirements for efficient information on the control program in the area. This review provides evidence of temporally regressive and spatially expanding incidence of CL with characteristic geographical patterns and disease hotspots, signifying an urgent need for comprehensive control strategies. This information could be a suitable model and practical experience in the Eastern Mediterranean Region, where over 80% of CL is reported.

No abstract

No abstract

Understanding market integration has greatly benefited from analysing and comparing variations in price transmissions. An important source of variation in agricultural markets is seasonal changes in production, consumption and transaction costs. A key factor driving seasonality in agricultural price is temperature, as supply and demand changes are triggered by seasonal temperature differences. In this paper, we study the seasonal variations in vertical price transmission focusing on the asymmetric price adjustment to analyse changes in the market interactions between the stages of the value chain. Our data reveal significant transitory effects of temperature on the price transmission process. Results of a panel threshold model suggest that the farmwholesale price adjustments to deviations from the market equilibrium are more symmetric at higher temperatures. However, we do not find an effect of temperature on the wholesale-retail price relationship. Our findings can be rationalised with wholesalers making use of their market power to extend their margins in the upstream chain. Wholesaler market power is lower during warm periods, and price adjustment is more symmetric. Concerning the Iranian poultry value chain, our findings imply that temperature-related differences in market interactions should be considered in formulating policy interventions.

As with other regions of Iran, due to excessive extraction of groundwater for intense agricultural activity, Ghorveh plain, a water-scarce irrigation district in the west of Iran, has faced a serious water crisis during the last decade. The present study investigates the impacts of two scenario policies, namely, non-price policy (as a supply-oriented policy) and water pricing policies (as a demand-oriented policy) on agricultural sector of Ghorveh Plain, using positive mathematical programming (PMP). The model was calibrated by using farm-level data for the crop years in 2016-2017. Our findings indicate that applying water supply constraint policy will change the land use and cropping pattern to the crops with higher water productivity. The increase of water resource constraints can lead to the increase of water economic return which indicates a rising value of water resources shortage, warning the producers of the agriculture sector to allocate water to the crops with higher economic value under the water resources shortage conditions. In addition, the findings underline that in a situation where the price of irrigation water is low due to the low elasticity of water demand in the agriculture sector, formulating the economic instruments such as rising water prices does not solely suffice to achieve sustainable water resource management. However, mixed scenarios emphasized that the water distribution policies should be aligned with the increases in water cost.

This study employs traditional holidays in Iran as proxies to analyze the impact of periods of peak demand on cost passthrough in the poultry market. We use weekly wholesale and retail price data for all 30 provinces of Iran from 2010 to 2016. By panel cointegration techniques, we estimate cost pass-through elasticities and speed of adjustment during periods of peak demand. We find that cost passthrough elasticities slightly increase; the speed of adjustment in periods of peak demand remains the same, but retail-wholesale margins decrease. Thus, peak demand leads to an increase in retail-wholesale competition similarly observed by Chevalier et al. (2003, Am Econ Rev, 93, 15-37). K E Y W O R D S cost pass-through, Iran, panel error correction model, peak demand, poultry market J E L C L A S S I F I C A T I O N D12, L11, L81