EXTRACTION AND BIOACTIVITY EVALUATION OF ANTIOXIDANT COMPONENTS FROM TEUCRIUM STOCKSIANUM BIOSS COLLECTED FROM UAE

Recently, the industry of Natural Bioactive Compounds (NBAC) is expanding dramatically due to its high medical potentials. High bioactivity of natural extracts from a wide range of plants is evident from the reported literature. For instance, NBACs show antibacterial, antifungal, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anticancer and antioxidant activities. Teucrium stocksianum Boiss. from the Lamiaceae family is a known herb in the traditional medicine in United Arab Emirates. Multiple bioactivities of T. stocksianum were recorded such as anti-inflammation, analgesia, antioxidation, anticancer, antinociception and antimicrobial bioactivity. In this thesis, the extraction of NBACs from T. stocksianum was studied with Microwave-assisted extraction using Deep eutectic solvent (MAE-DES). The resultant yield of extraction and antioxidant capacity were compared with the results of Ultrasound-assisted extraction with water, Hydrodistillation and Soxhlet with four different solvents (methanol, ethanol, Diethyl ether and n-hexane). MAE-DES showed higher results in term of yield (54.18%) and antioxidant bioactivity (21.67 mg Trolox equivalent/g dry weight). The effects of operating parameters for MAE-DES method on the total antioxidant capacity of extracts and the yield of extraction were investigated. Four independent variables, solid–liquid ratio (1:10, 1:30, and 1:50 ratio of raw material to DES, w/v), microwave power (220, 400, and 800 W), microwave time (60, 120, and 180 s), and DES concentration (30%, 50%, and 70%)—were used, and the optimized conditions were found to be 1:50, 400 W, 180 s and 30%

An automatic diacritization algorithm for undiacritized Arabic text

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is used today in most written and some spoken media. It is, however, not the native dialect of any country. Recently, the rate of the written dialectal Arabic text increased dramatically. Most of these texts have been written in the Egyptian dialectal, as it is considered the most widely used dialect and understandable throughout the Middle East. Like other Semitic languages, in written Arabic, short vowels are not written, but are represented by diacritic marks. Nonetheless, these marks are not used in most of the modern Arabic texts (for example books and newspapers). The absence of diacritic marks creates a huge ambiguity, as the un-diacritized word may correspond to more than one correct diacritization (vowelization) form. Hence, the aim of this research is to reduce the ambiguity of the absences of diacritic marks using hybrid algorithm with significantly higher accuracy than the state-of-the-art systems for MSA. Moreover, this research is to implement and evaluate the accuracy of the algorithm for dialectal Arabic text. The design of the proposed algorithm based on two main techniques as follows: statistical n-gram along with maximum likelihood estimation and morphological analyzer. Merging the word, morpheme, and letter levels with their sub-models together into one platform in order to improve the automatic diacritization accuracy is the proposition of this research. Moreover, by utilizing the feature of the case ending diacritization, which is ignoring the diacritic mark on the last letter of the word, shows a significant error improvement. The reason for this remarkable improvement is that the Arabic language prohibits adding diacritic marks over some letters. The hybrid algorithm demonstrated a good performance of 97.9% when applied to MSA corpora (Tashkeela), 97.1% when applied on LDC’s Arabic Treebank-Part 3 v1.0 and 91.8% when applied to Egyptian dialectal corpus (CallHome). The main contribution of this research is the hybrid algorithm for automatic diacritization of undiacritized MSA text and dialectal Arabic text. The proposed algorithm applied and evaluated on Egyptian colloquial dialect, the most widely dialect understood and used throughout the Arab world, which is considered as first time based on the literature review

A Computational Lexicon and Representational Model for Arabic Multiword Expressions

The phenomenon of multiword expressions (MWEs) is increasingly recognised as a serious and challenging issue that has attracted the attention of researchers in various language-related disciplines. Research in these many areas has emphasised the primary role of MWEs in the process of analysing and understanding language, particularly in the computational treatment of natural languages. Ignoring MWE knowledge in any NLP system reduces the possibility of achieving high precision outputs. However, despite the enormous wealth of MWE research and language resources available for English and some other languages, research on Arabic MWEs (AMWEs) still faces multiple challenges, particularly in key computational tasks such as extraction, identification, evaluation, language resource building, and lexical representations. This research aims to remedy this deficiency by extending knowledge of AMWEs and making noteworthy contributions to the existing literature in three related research areas on the way towards building a computational lexicon of AMWEs. First, this study develops a general understanding of AMWEs by establishing a detailed conceptual framework that includes a description of an adopted AMWE concept and its distinctive properties at multiple linguistic levels. Second, in the use of AMWE extraction and discovery tasks, the study employs a hybrid approach that combines knowledge-based and data-driven computational methods for discovering multiple types of AMWEs. Third, this thesis presents a representative system for AMWEs which consists of multilayer encoding of extensive linguistic descriptions. This project also paves the way for further in-depth AMWE-aware studies in NLP and linguistics to gain new insights into this complicated phenomenon in standard Arabic. The implications of this research are related to the vital role of the AMWE lexicon, as a new lexical resource, in the improvement of various ANLP tasks and the potential opportunities this lexicon provides for linguists to analyse and explore AMWE phenomena

The Role of Researcher Competencies in Delivering Successful Research

This research  aims to identify the  role of researcher competencies in delivering successful research and  most important competencies that must an individualpossess to become a good researcher. However,some researchers have confused skills with competencies. For example, in some previous studies, data collection and analysis were reported as competencies, yet these are skills that can be acquired through training. n contrast, competencies are innate talents present at birth within person. The main results of this study mention thatresearcher competencies differ from researcher skills. Based on these results, the authorssuggest recommendation such as Universities should pay more attention to the research process. And Arab countries should allocate a special budget to support scientific research. Keywords: Competencies, Successful Research Projects, Researchers DOI: 10.7176/IKM/9-1-0

The Effect of Using Reflective Teaching Strategies on Developing Classroom Performance of Prospective Teachers of English at Al-Aqsa University

هدفت هذه الدراسة إلى بحث أثر استخدام استراتيجيات التدريس التأملي على تطوير الأداء الصفي للطالبات المعلمات، تخصص اللغة الانجليزية. ولقد تبنت الدراسة المنهج شبه التجريبي. وتكونت عينة الدراسة من(٣٢) طالبة مقيدة بالمستوى الرابع في تخصص اللغة الانجليزية واساليب تدريسها بكلية التربية في جامعة الاقصى بغزة، وتم تقسيمهن عشوائيا إلى مجموعتين (ضابطة وتجريبية). اعتمدت المجموعة الضابطة على الطريقة المعتادة في أدائها، وهي تعليقات المشرفين فقط، بينما استخدمت المجموعة التجريبية استراتيجيات التدريس التأملي في فترة التربية العملية (2) حيث تم تدريب المجموعة التجريبية على استخدام استراتيجيتين للتدريس التأملي وهي: المذكرات اليومية، وملاحظة الزملاء أو الرفاق. ولقد تمت الاستعانة في هذا البحث بوسائل جمع البيانات وهي: قائمة ملاحظة بممارسات وأداء التدريس الصفي، ومقياس (متدرج) لتحليل وتقدير استراتيجيات التدريس التأملي. تم تحليل البيانات كمياً وكيفياً. واستخدمت الدراسة الإحصاء الوصفي (المتوسطات، والانحرافات المعيارية، والتكرارات، والرتب، والنسب المئوية واختبار "ت" في تحليل البيانات. ولمعرفة حجم التأثير الناتج عن استخدام استراتيجيات التدريس التأملي (المتغير المستقل) على الأداء الصفي للطالبات المعلمات (المتغير التابع) تم الاستعانة بمربع "إيتا". أظهرت نتائج الدراسة اهم ممارسات الأداء الصفي التي تحتاجها الطالبات المعلمات داخل الغرفة الصفية. كما اوضحت النتائج تحسنا ملحوظا في الأداء الصفي للمجموعة التجريبية. وعلاوة على ذلك، اظهرت نتائج الدراسة أن فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية عند مستوى 0.01) ) بين متوسطي درجات المجموعتين (التجريبية والضابطة) في التطبيق البعدي لقائمة معايير الأداء الصفي ككل وفي كل محور من المحاور الستة (توجيه التعليمات، استخدام تقنيات طرح الأسئلة المحفزة، استخدام التقنيات المناسبة لتصحيح الأخطاء، تعزيز الإجابات الصحيحة، الاستخدام المنظم للسبورة، واستخدام مصادر المعلومات والوسائل المتوفرة) لصالح المجموعة التجريبية. كذلك وتوصلت الدراسة إلى وجود فروق ذات دلالة إحصائية عند المستوى بين متوسط درجات المجموعة التجريبية في التطبيق القبلي والبعدي لقائمة معايير الأداء الصفي ككل وفي 0.01) ) كل محور من المحاور الستة السابق ذكرها وذلك لصالح التطبيق البعدي. وخلصت الدراسة إلى فعالية استخدام استراتيجيات التدريس التأملي خلال التربية العملية في تحسين الأداء الصفي للطالبات المعلمات تخصص اللغة الانجليزية واساليب تدريسها. وفي ضوء النتائج التي تم التوصل إليها، جاءت بعض التوصيات ومنها: وجوب دمج استراتيجيات التدريس التأملي في برامج إعداد معلمة اللغة الانجليزية، وفي مقررات طرق تدريس اللغة الانجليزية خاصة. وأنه من الضروري أن تتعرف الطالبة المعلمة على أساليب وطرق مختلفة ومتعددة للتأمل ٠ وقد أوصت الدراسة بإمكانية تطوير أداء المعلمات أثناء الخدمة باستخدام التدريس التأملي وأنشطته، بالإضافة إلى وجوب تدريب الطالبات المعلمات على استخدام الأدوات التي تدعم التفكير التأملي.This study aimed at investigating the effect of using the reflective teaching strategies on developing the classroom performance of prospective teachers of English at Al-Aqsa University. The Quasi-experimental design was adopted. The sample of the study consisted of 32 prospective female teachers of English enrolled at the Faculty of Education – Al-Aqsa University. They were randomly assigned to two groups (control and experimental). The control group received only the traditional supervisory practices while the experimental group was trained in using reflective teaching and introduced to three different activities of reflection which were journal writing, peer observation, and five-minute papers. Research instruments were interviews, checklist of classroom teaching practices, analytic scoring rubric of journal writing and peer classroom observation. Descriptive statistics (means, standard deviation, frequencies, ranks and percentages), independent and paired samples t-test (2-tailed) were used for data analysis. The effect size "d" was computed using Eta Squared (η2). Findings of the study showed the most important classroom teaching performance and practices in classroom in light of the checklist developed for that purpose. The results also demonstrated that a significant improvement  in  classroom  performance  of  the  experimental  group in the post-observation. The study findings also indicate that statistically significant differences at 0.01 level were found in overall classroom performance and in six dimensions namely:  giving  effective instructions,  using  motivated  question techniques,  choosing  suitable techniques for correcting mistakes, praising the correct answers, systematic handling of the blackboard, and making and using available audio-visual aids, in favor of the experimental group. Moreover, statistically significant differences at 0.01 level were also noted in overall classroom performance and in the six dimensions of classroom performance of the experimental group, in favor of those of the posttest.  The  study  concluded  that  the  reflective  teaching  strategies  can  be  used effectively with student teachers during the practicum period. It was recommended that it should be incorporated in EFL teacher education programs, specifically in the EFL methodology course. However, student teachers should make every effort to learn more about a variety of reflective activities.  The  reflective  teaching  strategies  could  be  used  on  developing  and  improving  the classroom performance of in-service teachers as well. Prospective teachers should be trained on methods of developing reflective thinking levels

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF ANALYTICAL METHOD FOR QUANTIFICATION OF ACETIC ACID CONTENT IN AMLODIPINE BESYLATE

Objective: To develop and validate a simple and accurate cost-effective titrimetric method according to International Conference Harmonization (ICH) guidelines for acetic acid content in Amlodipine Besylate. Methods: The titration based on general acid-base reaction to form water and salt. Sodium hydroxide act as a strong base and titrated against weak acid (acetic acid). Phenolphthalein used as an indicator and colorless to pink is the endpoint. Sodium hydroxide is standardized with primary standard potassium hydrogen phthalate. Results: The method was linear in the range of 0.75 to 30.25 μg/ml with a correlation coefficient 0.9999. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantitation (LOQ) value were found to be 0.61 and 1.85 μg/ml, respectively. The percentage recovery (98.20–99.97%) and percentage relative standard deviation (%RSD) is less than 2% within the acceptable limit of ICH guidelines. The robustness and ruggedness results were excellent. Method is accurate and precise, no interference from excipients. Conclusion: A new analytical titrimetric method was developed and validated as per ICH guidelines for the determination of acetic acid content in amlodipine. This proposed method applied for routine analysis of acetic acid content in bulk and pharmaceutical formulations of amlodipine besylate

Perception of Strategic Human Resource Architecture and Strategic Direction Among Employees of Jordanian Private Companies

This paper represent an attempt to investigate the perception of employees at Jordanian private companies with regards to their companies strategic human resource architecture, strategic direction and impediments to the implementation of strategic human resource. A total of 103 employees participated in the study. The respondents are employees of Jordanian private companies located in Irbid, north Jordan. The results of the study suggest that the level of perception among the employees on the three variables are quite high. In addition, there exist a relationship between strategic human resource architecture and strategic direction

Assessing EFL Learners’ Consecutive Interpreting Skills

Interpreting is taught to senior EFL learners in Saudi Faculties of Arts. Since it is a branch with a vast number of skills, the present study seeks to evaluate EFL learners’ interpreting skills. Forty graduate-level majors at Uqlat Asoqour Faculty of Arts, Qassim University were chosen randomly to sit for an interpreting test. A consecutive interpreting skills rubric was used to assess twelve interpreting skills over six points scale. Results of the statistical analysis showed variances among the subjects’ interpreting skills, with a need to tackle some of interpreting skills intensively in the translation and interpreting courses presented to EFL students in Faculties of Arts