Low density spreading multiple access

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The impact of asset management on achieving bank profitability (Applied study within Al-Khaleej commercial bank)

Banking activity is essential in countries' economies, as banks are considered intermediate financial institutions between surplus and deficit. Bank managers work on achieving the main objectives of any bank, which are: (profitability, liquidity, and security) by balancing the management of assets and liabilities and avoiding risks that face their work, such as liquidity risks and credit risks, as asset management is concerned with choosing the optimal investment combination for available sources of funds, as the funds are utilized in a variety of ways to reduce risks and obtain profit. Maximizing the bank's profitability is the responsibility of the management, as maximizing profitability is a strategic goal for the bank, and it will contribute to expanding the bank's work and obtaining a larger market share. The research was based on the analysis of banking profitability indicators (income of assets, income of investment) and their impact on profitability. As asset management is the one factor that affects the returns of assets and acquisitions, and, in turn, bank profitability is concerned. Thus, asset management must invest money elaborately and keep risks at bay

Evaluation study of IEEE 1609.4 performance for safety and non-safety messages dissemination

The IEEE 1609.4 was developed to support multi-channel operation and channel switching procedure in order to provide both safety and non-safety vehicular applications. However, this protocol has some drawback because it does not make efficient usage of channel bandwidth resources for single radio WAVE devices and suffer from high bounded delay and lost packet especially for large-scale networks in terms of the number of active nodes. This paper evaluates IEEE 1609.4 multi-channel protocol performance for safety and non-safety application and compare it with the IEEE 802.11p single channel protocol. Multi-channel and single channel protocols are analyzed in different environments to investigate their performance. By relying on a realistic dataset and using OMNeT++ simulation tool as network simulator, SUMO as traffic simulator and coupling them by employing Veins framework. Performance evaluation results show that the delay of single channel protocol IEEE 802.11p has been degraded 36% compared with multi-channel protocol

Radio resource allocation for multicarrier-low density spreading multiple access

Multicarrier-low density spreading multiple access (MC-LDSMA) is a promising multiple access technique that enables near optimum multiuser detection. In MC-LDSMA, each user’s symbol spread on a small set of subcarriers, and each subcarrier is shared by multiple users. The unique structure of MC-LDSMA makes the radio resource allocation more challenging comparing to some well-known multiple access techniques. In this paper, we study the radio resource allocation for single-cell MC-LDSMA system. Firstly, we consider the single-user case, and derive the optimal power allocation and subcarriers partitioning schemes. Then, by capitalizing on the optimal power allocation of the Gaussian multiple access channel, we provide an optimal solution for MC-LDSMA that maximizes the users’ weighted sum-rate under relaxed constraints. Due to the prohibitive complexity of the optimal solution, suboptimal algorithms are proposed based on the guidelines inferred by the optimal solution. The performance of the proposed algorithms and the effect of subcarrier loading and spreading are evaluated through Monte Carlo simulations. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithms significantly outperform conventional static resource allocation, and MC-LDSMA can improve the system performance in terms of spectral efficiency and fairness in comparison with OFDMA

Registration System for the Faculty of Science - Sana'a University

The purpose of this project is to develop a computerized registration system for Faculty of Science in Sana' a University - Yemen, since the registration system in the faculty still manual. This system was developed using Oracle as a DBMS, because of the facilities it provides such as, unlimited database and high-speed data access. The waterfall model was the model that has been chosen to develop this system because it does not require a user feedback like prototyping model or some other models and this is because this project has been developed in a different place (i.e. not in the same country of the Sana'a University). With this system, the registration process can be easily done accurately, faster, and with more security than the manual process

Implications of the Improvement of Teaching Quality for Professional Development (PD) of Academics at the Colleges of Applied Sciences (CASs) in the Sultanate of Oman

The Oman Accreditation Council (OAC), which is called later the Oman Academic Accreditation Authority (OAAA), designed a higher education institution (HEI) Quality Assurance (QA) framework for Omani public and private Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), starting with a quality audit process in 2008. The Colleges of Applied Sciences (CASs), as a public HEI, are required to ensure the quality of all services and activities to meet particular national standards (specified in the framework) in order to gain a HEI and programme certificate. In line with a quality audit scope, the quality of the fields of PD and related teaching quality should be ensured and enhanced by the promotion and contribution of the former field to the maintenance and improvement of the latter one. The chief purpose of this study was to identify the uptake and implications of the growing requirement to improve teaching quality and the PD of academics at the CASs in the Sultanate of Oman especially in the context of the application of the QA framework. The study focused on examining the academics’ participation in professional development programmes (PDPs) and current perceptions of PD with respect to the improvement of teaching quality improvement at these colleges. The current study also dealt with a reorganization and prioritization of academics’ PD needs, barriers to effective PD, and factors to enhance PD of academics regarding teaching quality improvement in the colleges. Based on the purpose and research objectives, the current study adopted both positivist (quantitative) and interpretive (qualitative) research paradigms. Because the study perused quantitative and qualitative data regarding certain variables, it chose a mixed-research design. The researcher designed survey questionnaire to collect quantitative data and a semi-structured interview and a focus group discussion to probe and interpret quantitative findings. After fulfillment of the validity and reliability measurements, a self-completion questionnaire was distributed to a stratified random sample of academics (170) over the six CASs. A total of 150 questionnaires (out of 170) were completed and returned and the response-rate reached 88.2%. The quantitative data was analyzed by appropriate analysis using the Statistical Package for Social sciences (SPSS), while the qualitative data was analyzed by appropriate qualitative analysis. The findings of the study showed that the level of academics’ participation in PDPs to improve teaching quality in the last two years in the CASs seems to be unsatisfactorily low. The current perceptions of the PD situations in the colleges, relating to teaching quality improvement, signified a shortage in the number of available PDPs and/or a discouragement of academics’ participation in these programmes in the last two years. The study also revealed all the 22 PD needs of academics regarding the improvement of teaching quality are significantly demanded by participants; the higher rated needs focused on a development of ‘student centred’ skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Furthermore, the study illustrated that the highest significant perceived barriers to effective PD in the CASs, as related to teaching quality improvement, focus on a lack of a clear institutional PD policy and a lack of appropriately systematic PD plans. The study also revealed all 10 perceived factors to enhance PD regarding teaching quality improvement are very important. The most significant factors represented and stressed particular problematic issues (the high rated barriers) and a reduction of a heavy workload to enhance academics’ participation in PD regarding the improvement of teaching quality. Conclusions drawn from the discussion of the findings of study include a lack of a clear PD policy at national and institutional levels and absence of a particular authority/unit concerning PD issues in Omani HEIs. The two problematic issues resulted in a lack of systematic and realistic PD plans in the CASs, involving a lack of academics’ involvement in PD plans, a misconnection of academics’ PD needs to PD, inappropriate facilities and resources allocation, and inappropriate evaluation processes of PD. In addition, the conclusions also include that PD of academics regarding the improvement of teaching quality in the colleges requires more attention and focus to manage particular significant issues perceived by participants as both barriers and potential facilitators relating to PD of academics. Based on identified conclusions, particular implications for policy and practice to enhance PD to improve teaching quality were set at three levels: governmental, institutional, and individual. Moreover, achievements of the current study according to the research questions were identified and contributions of the study to the fields of PD, teaching quality, and the context of QA and quality audit in HE were addressed. Based on the findings and conclusions, particular directions and recommended issues were suggested to be studied by further research to benefit the enhancement of PD and related teaching quality improvement

The Interaction of Indirect Evidentiality, Temporality and Epistemic Modality in Jordanian Arabic: The Case of Deverbal Agentives

Abstract Evidentiality is commonly concerned with two basic notions: evidence type and the speaker's commitment towards the truth of the proposition expressed (Chafe and Nichols 1986). Throughout a detailed study of the morphosyntax and semantics of deverbal agentives (DAs), this dissertation investigates indirect evidentiality and its interaction with two other semantic categories, particularly epistemic modality and temporality in Jordanian Arabic (JA). The study shows that the semantics and morphosyntax of DAs is far more complex than what has been described in the previous literature which mainly focused on the temporal and non-verbal features of DAs. I propose an indirect evidential account to capture the semantics of DAs. The evidential proposal is grounded on a diverse body of evidence which shows that DAs are the hallmark of indirect evidentiality in JA. The evidential meaning of DAs is explored with regard to their interaction with temporality and epistemic modality. The proposed analysis provides a unified account of DAs where the evidential, modal and temporal components are incorporated. I argue that the indirect evidence is specified by anterior and posterior temporal relations. I also show that evidential DAs trigger a modal reading in their semantics. The modal reading is captured by a compositional analysis where DAs are analyzed as quantifiers over possible worlds, adopting Kratzer's possible world theory (1981, 1991). Morphosyntactically, the study calls for a reconsideration of the previous categorization of DAs found in the literature (Kremers 2003, Mughazy 2004 among others). I defend an alternative evidential categorization of DAs in JA. The morphosyntactic analysis also challenges the `verbal vs non-verbal' view of predication in Arabic in general and in JA in particular. Based on this fact, I propose an alternative view of predication in JA based on a modal vs non-modal rather than a verbal vs non-verbal distinction. The empirical findings of the current study have significant implications for the linguistic analysis of JA, Arabic dialects, Semitology and evidentiality cross-linguistically. The study provides an alternative evidential perspective of the temporal behavior of DAs and specifically the temporal problem of DAs which has long dominated the literature on DAs in all Arabic dialects. Typologically, the current evidential account suggests that any theory of evidentiality should not restrict the requirement of the evidence type to a lexical or morphological specification, but include a temporal specification as well. Also, the evidential-modal analysis suggests that the type of inferential reading not only includes consequent-state inferential readings as assumed in the literature but also result-state inferential readings as well. Additionally, the current study is the first attempt to account for evidentiality in Semitology. Contrary to the widely held belief in the Semitic literature, this study provides evidence that evidentiality does exist as a separate category in at least one Semitic language - JA

Life cycle costing of industrialized building system and conventional building system

Life cycle costing (LCC) is the process of identifying and documenting the initial cost and future cost of the project throughout the lifetime of the building. It is important in determining the design alternatives through analyzing the total cost of ownership over the life span of an asset. Lack of adaptation of the residents with the house design leads them to adjust the house to fit their needs. The aim of this study is to calculate the life cycle costing of the new project as well as the changes and modifications throughout assumed lifespan of two generations for conventional and industrialized building system houses. Furthermore, it also introduces an alternative design to suit the householder needs. To achieve the aims, a research questionnaire survey was distributed among householders to obtain the money spent on housing and the modifications that occurred in the house throughout their home occupation. Moreover, the Net Present Value (NPV) method was adopted to achieve the IBS life cycle costing. Besides, Auto CAD software use to draw different house layouts to fit the residents’ requirements obtained from the questionnaire. However, the results showed that the modifications cost of a conventional house equal to 57% of house selling price and the LCC of the conventional building system equal to 67% of the IBS. The research shows that the IBS is a better method of construction as an alternative to a conventional building system