ESTIMATING THE ENGEL CURVES FOR HOUSEHOLD EXPENDITURES IN JORDAN FROM 2010 TO 2011

This present study aims at estimating the Engel curves for household expenditures using data of household expenditures and income survey of Jordan for the year 2010. In order to achieve the above objective, six functional forms have been formulated and estimated. The data was grouped into nine commodity groups from the raw data which covers 13866 households from urban and rural areas. The main findings of the study are 1. The family size does not affect the demand for the Vice, Housing, Transportation and Health Commodity groups. On the other hand, the family size for the other groups is significantly different from zero which suggests that family size affect the demand for these commodity groups. 2. The family size does not affect per-capita consumption of these commodity groups. The t-test indicates that there are economies of scale only for food. 3. The consumption pattern for clothing, housing, personal care and miscellaneous commodity group, are not the same in urban and in rural areas

Game Theory in Israel’s Relation with the Palestinian Authority: Study of Israel’s Withdrawal to Borders of the Year 1967, a Model (1993-2018)

This study examines the concept of game theory, its objectives and its elements. It also reviews the Israeli Palestinian treaties and the international resolutions related to the issue of the Israeli withdrawal from the Palestinian territories on the basis of borders of 4 June 1967 including Jerusalem, as one of the core issues for reaching a final status agreement between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, the declaration of the establishment of a Palestinian state, ending the state of conflict between the two sides and reaching the stage of peaceful coexistence. The review involves clarifying the instruments and the techniques upon which Israel propped in applying this theory in its relation with the Palestinian Authority, and analysing the extent of gains or less achieved by both sides in this issue, in accordance with the concept of zero theory, or non- zero theory based games. The study had deduced that Israel confined in its strategy to employing the method of zero game with the Palestinian National Authority considering itself the stronger party who is able to exerting its pressures to achieve the greatest amount of gains, but the Palestinian leadership could not, till this moment achieve any gains rather the relinquishment it made by signing the Oslo Agreement were followed by subsequent relinquishment

Enhanced methods of ocean wave spectra and sea state parameter estimation from X-band marine radar data

Due to the ocean's importance in human lives, researchers have been studying the ocean and developing systems to estimate its state since the 19th century. During the last three decades, remote sensing of the ocean surface using X-band marine radars has emerged as a reliable tool to estimate ocean wave spectra and sea state parameters such as mean wave period and direction and significant wave height. The purpose of this thesis is to develop methods that produce accurate and reliable estimates of ocean wave spectra using X-band marine radar data. The approach taken in this thesis is to determine the sources of ocean wave spectra estimation error in existing methods and then to develop new methods that minimize those errors. In this thesis, four sources of error are addressed: the dependency of spectra estimation on the orientation of the analysis windows; the effect of the radar sampling process; the effect of the scan conversion process; and the accuracy of surface current estimation. The azimuthal location of the X-band radar data analysis window affects the estimation of ocean wave spectra. it has been reported in the literature, and supported by our results, that using the up-wave directions for analysis windows produces higher signal to noise ratios and hence more accurate ocean wave spectra estimates. In order to minimize error due to dependency on the orientation of the analysis windows, a new method referred to as the Adaptive Recursive Positioning Method (ARPM) is proposed. The ARPM is a recursive approach that dynamically determines the optimal number of analysis windows and their corresponding orientation toward the up-wave directions. Second, in this thesis, it has been demonstrated that the sampling process of the ocean surface by X-band marine radar during data collection significantly affects the estimation of ocean save spectra from X-band marine radar data. Therefore, a method referred to as the Inverse Sampling Averaging Filter (ISAF) is proposed to mitigate the effect of the radar sampling process of the ocean surface on the ocean wave spectra estimation using X-band marine radars. ISAF was designed based on a novel understanding of the radar sampling process to involve an averaging process or low pass filtering of the ocean wave spectra. Third, in this thesis, a method referred to as the Polar Fourier Transform (PFT) is proposed to eliminate the distortion presented by the scan conversion process to the estimated wave spectra. Unlike the existing methods which use the Cartesian Fourier Transform (CFT) to acquire the ocean wave spectra, the PFT method is designed to apply a Fourier-type transformation on the radar data in its native format, which is sampled in the polar coordinates, without the need for the intermediate stage of scan conversion used to map the data into Cartesian coordinates. The performance of the proposed methods, the ARPM,ISAF and PFT, are individually validated by comparing their ocean wave spectra estimates to those acquired using the existing methods with respect to ground truth wave spectra acquired using a wave rider buoy. Furthermore, the proposed methods were also combined together to seek further enhancement. The wave spectra estimation results from different combinations of the proposed methods were validated in comparison to the ground truth data. Finally, a new method to estimate surface current using X-band marine radar is proposed. This method is referred to as the Hybrid Least Squares (HLS) method. The HLS combines two existing approaches: the Iterative Least Squares (ILS) method and the Normalized Scalar Product (NSP). The HLS is designed to inherit the short computational time of ILS and the high reliability of NSP. To validate its accuracy and reliability, the proposed HLS method was applied on a number of simulated X-band marine radar image sets and the results were compared to the estimates acquired using the ILS and the NSP

Constructing a Criterion Reference Test to Measure the Research and Statistical Competencies of Graduate Students at the Jordanian Governmental Universities

This study aimed at constructing a criterion-reference test to measure the research and statistical competencies of graduate students at the Jordanian governmental universities, the test has to be in its first form of (50) multiple choice items, then the test was introduced to (5) arbitrators with competence in measurement and evaluation to determine the cut-off score using Angoff method amounted to (0.69), the test was applied to an experimental sample of (80) students ( males and females  from the International Islamic University to check out the difficulty and discrimination coefficients of the items, based on these coefficients, (5) items have been deleted, then the test which consists of (45) items in its final form, was applied to the total sample consisting of (275) students  (males and females) from the Jordanian governmental universities  (University of Jordan, Al-Yarmouk, Mu'tah), the stability coefficient was estimated using kuder-Ritchardson-20 coefficient (0.83) to be used in the verification of Livingston stability at the cut-off score, its value reached (0.87). The results showed that there is statistically significant differences in the degree of possession of competencies attributed to gender, also showed a statistically significant differences in the possessing of competencies attributed to scientific degree in favor of the doctorate, and there was no effect of the interaction between the two variables (sex and scientific degree) to acquire skills, and the results showed that there is a clear decline in the mastery of graduate students at Jordanian universities for research and statistical competencies, the proportion of the expert students who are over the cut-off score was (0.57). Keywords: Criterion Reference Test, Research and Statistical Competencies

العوامل المؤثرة على سعر السهم السوقي في بورصة عمّان خلال الفترة 1984-2011

This study aimed to identify the factors influencing the share price in the Amman Stock Exchange, during the period 1984-2011. The study used a descriptive approach of analytical and quantitative standard, this effect was measured using a standard model for the integration of the joint study of the relationships between the relevant economic variables. Also been applied to test the causality test and analysis of variance components as well as the response function to test the reaction to achieve their goals. The study found that there are three variables affect positively on the rate of stock prices of companies, namely: dividends and trading volume in the market, and earnings per share

العوامل المؤثرة على سعر السهم السوقي في بورصة عمّان خلال الفترة 1984-2011

This study aimed to identify the factors influencing the share price in the Amman Stock Exchange, during the period 1984-2011. The study used a descriptive approach of analytical and quantitative standard, this effect was measured using a standard model for the integration of the joint study of the relationships between the relevant economic variables. Also been applied to test the causality test and analysis of variance components as well as the response function to test the reaction to achieve their goals. The study found that there are three variables affect positively on the rate of stock prices of companies, namely: dividends and trading volume in the market, and earnings per share

The Effect of Radar Ocean Surface Sampling on Wave Spectrum Estimation Using X-Band Marine Radar

In this paper, the effect of the ocean surface sampling process on the ocean wave spectral estimation using the Cartesian Fourier transform (CFT) method on X-band marine radar data is investigated. Our analysis shows that the ocean surface sampling process involves a spatial averaging process that might be described as a 2-D low pass filter. Furthermore, a filter referred to as the inverse sampling averaging filter (ISAF) is proposed to be integrated with the CFT method in order to mitigate the effect of the sampling process. For validation, the CFT-with-ISAF method as well as the CFT-without-ISAF method were used to estimate ocean wave spectra and sea state parameters from X-band marine radar field data. The estimates from both methods were compared to ground truth estimates generated using TRIAXYS wave buoy data. The results show that the ISAF improves the CFT method in estimating ocean wave spectra. The recorded accuracy improvements in estimating the non-directional wave spectrum, the peak wave period, the mean wave period, the zero-crossing wave period, and the peak wave direction were 11%, 12%, 21%, 17%, and 34%, respectively. The performances of significant wave height estimation using the ISAF method and the standard CFT method were validated against ground truth estimates and found to be comparable

The impact of income diversification on the stability of listed Jordanian commercial banks during the COVID-19 pandemic

This study investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between income diversification and bank stability among Jordanian commercial banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE), using a panel Autoregressive Distributed-Lagged Model (panel-ARDL) and quarterly data from 2015 to 2021. The findings demonstrate that during the COVID-19 period, a higher proportion of non-interest income, resulting from income diversification, enhances bank stability. However, considering the entire sample period, the results suggest a potential deterioration in bank stability when banks diversify towards non-interest income, aligning with the negative effect observed in the literature. Additionally, the study identifies factors such as bank size, liquidity, loan loss provisions, cost efficiency, and the deposit ratio, which influence bank stability. These findings hold significant implications for policymakers and banks in developing countries concerned about the impact of income diversification on bank stability. They also offer valuable insights to understanding the dynamics of income diversification and its implications for bank stability in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

Utilisation of raw oil shale as fine aggregate to replace natural sand in concrete: Microstructure, surface chemistry and macro properties

Data availability: Data will be made available on request.Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This study set out to examine the unconventional use of raw oil shale (OS) as fine aggregate in concrete instead of its traditional utilisation as a pollutant energy source aiming to hinder the depletion of natural resources. Oil shale particles have been used to replace sand in concrete with 30 wt.-% and 50 wt.-% ratios. Part of the used OS particles was treated with silane prior to their addition in concrete. The fresh, mechanical, and durability properties, along with the micro-properties and surface chemistry of mixtures, were analysed by running the slump, compressive strength, permeability, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) tests, respectively. Five concrete mixtures consisting of 30 samples with the size of 150 mm x 150 mm x 150 mm were prepared to serve the testing programme of the study. The results revealed the formation of a well-bonded interfacial transition zone between untreated OS particles and the cementitious matrix due to the presence of pozzolanic materials in OS. However, micro cracks and enlarged capillary pores were witnessed in treated OS mixtures along with a weak interfacial transition zone between the treated OS and the cementitious matrix. Moreover, the use of 30 wt.-% untreated OS reduced the water absorption of concrete by 9% (absorption rate of 9.5%), while other mixtures experienced an increase in their water absorption with a maximum increase of 42% when using 50 wt.-% treated OS (absorption rate of 10.7%). All mixtures attained a reduction in their compressive strength compared to control sample when employing treated and untreated OS in concrete, with a minimum reduction of 13% when using 30 wt.-% untreated OS (compressive strength of 26 MPa). The strength reduction in untreated OS mixtures is due to the formation of free CaO and free SiO2, which promote concrete expansion. The interference between silane and kerogen in OS was the main reason behind the strength reduction in treated OS mixtures. However, this reduction in mixtures’ strength is considered minimal, allowing for their potential use in different construction applications like rigid pavement.Deanship of Academic Research at Mutah University (Fund No.: 428/2021)