Perceptions of the role of the secondary school counsellor in Saudi Arabia

The role and function of the school counsellor has always been a matter of controversy and confusion. Commonly school counsellors neither fill their defined role nor meet all students' needs. In Saudi Arabia this is exacerbated by a lack of professional identity and status, of a clearly defined role, and of administrative support and adequate facilities.This study exammes the performance and importance of the role of the schoolcounsellor in Saudi Arabia through the perceptions of principals, teachers, students and counsellors themselves. Questionnaires were administered to 112 principals, 316 teachers, 451 students and 117 counsellors; semi-structured interviews were conducted with 9 principals, 14 teachers and 12 counsellors.Despite widespread support for counsellors there were considerable discrepancies in how different parties saw their role. Important functions were perceived as not being met. Counsellors were, and were seen to be involved in discipline and administrative tasks. Barriers to effective practice were shown to be: an absence of clear policy guidelines; poor resources; high student/counsellor ratios and lack of knowledge and cooperation from other school staff. Some ethical/professional issues were raised -like confidentiality- which indicated that without considerable structural change the service would continue to fail to meet either students' needs, or the expectations put upon it.The role of the school counsellor in Saudi Arabia needs to be more clearly defined, through training and (counselling) supervision, and assigned to qualified counsellors with facilities and the time to accomplish them successfully. Ultimately success will demand greater understanding of their role by all school staff whom might themselves benefit from training in counselling skills

Influence of Calcium and Nonphytate Phosphorus (NPP) on Meat-Type Quail’s Growth, Carcass Features, and Tibia Indices

This study aimed to evaluate the role of increasing dietary calcium (Ca) and non-phytate phosphorus (NPP) supplementation on the growth, carcass, edible portions, and tibia indicators of growing quail. The current study was conducted in a 3×3 factorial design, for this, 360 1-wk-old quails were haphazardly assigned to nine groups, each group is with three gradual levels of Ca (0.60, 0.90, and 1.20 %) and NPP (0.20, 0.40  and 0.60 %). Each group was divided into five replicates with eight-quail each. Results of the study suggested that except at 2 and 6 weeks of age, dietary Ca level did not exhibit any significant (P > 0.05) impact on body weight. Similarly, in the case of NPP, apart from the live weight at 2 and 3 weeks of age, NPP did not have a significant impact on live body weight. Further, in comparison to the low Ca level, the moderate or high Ca levels have higher values of body weight gain. During all the experiments, dietary Ca, NPP, or their mixtures had no significant (P > 0.05) impact on feed consumption. Similarly, feed conversion rate and carcass metrics were also not affected by the individual or combined application of Ca or NPP supplementation    Similarly, dietary intakes of Ca or P did not have any significant effect on the various tibia indicators (P > 0.05). Results of the study can be concluded that the effect of the Ca and NPP levels in Japanese quail diets is lowered and it does not much affect the growth rate, feed utilization, carcass yields, edible components, or tibia indices

Effects of a combination of herbal oils (rosemary, black cumin, and clove) on quail growth, antioxidant enzymes and health status

The purpose of this trial was to evaluate the potential of herbal oil combinations (rosemary, clove, and black cumin) in quail feeding as a natural growth enhancer. The effects of dietary gradual levels of this blend (RCBC) on growth indices, carcass attributes, and blood biochemical variables were compared to the control group (basal diets). For this, 300 1-week-old developing quails were employed. Birds were kept on the baseline diet with or free of herbal oils blend (RCBC) at three different amounts (0, 1.50, and 3.00 cm3/kg diet) from one to six weeks of age to suit their nutritional needs. There were no variations in live body weight or body weight gain over the entire period or at intervals. Compared to the control, birds fed RCBC-supplemented diets devoured more feed (P<0.01). RCBC supplementation in the diet did not affect the feed conversion ratio. Except for heart %, all carcass features were statistically (P <0.01) different after RCBC treatment when compared to the control. The amounts of total globulins, total protein, and albumin in quails given RCBC were higher than the control (P<0.001). In quails, the hepatic levels of GSH and the activity of SOD, catalase, GR, GPx, and GST all increased (P<0.001). MDA concentrations in hepatic homogenate were dramatically reduced by RCBC diets. Finally, RCBC supplementation at a dose of up to 3.0 cm3/ kg diet is recommended to enhance the growth and general health of quails during growth, which would have a favorable impact on the general health of quail meat consumers

Mechanisms associated with Staphylococcus aureus and Acanthamoeba Interactions, and Therapeutic applications"

Staphylococcus aureus is a major cause of infections within hospitals. Its spread among patients in hospitals is one of the major problems that require urgent attention. Staphylococcus aureus has the ability to interact with other microorganisms such as the free-living amoebae Acanthamoeba which acts as a host for various pathogens. This interaction is highly complex and may be beneficial to one of them or both. The main aims of this project were to study the interactions of Acanthamoeba castellanii with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and methicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus (MSSA), and to understand the molecular mechanisms involved. A large variety of molecules play a role in growth, function, migration and apoptosis. The role of Phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) in Acanthamoeba/bacteria interaction was studied through the use of inhibitors such as LY294002 and wortmannin, while the involvement of protein tyrosine kinase was studied through genistein and protein tyrosine phosphatase by sodium orthovandate (Na3VO4). The role of serine proteases of Acanthamoeba was investigated by using its inhibitor Phenylmethylsulfonyl fluoride (PMSF). The results showed that MRSA exhibited more invasive abilities towards Acanthamoeba, when compared with MSSA. In addition, inhibition of PI3K and tyrosine phosphatase subsequently resulted in the reduction of MRSA and MSSA invasion. However, PMSF increased bacterial uptake by Acanthamoeba. Two dimensional gel electrophoresis was performed to separate and fractionate the Acanthamoeba conditioned medium and the Universal Protein Resource Uniprot database was used for the analysis and identification of protein for the forty three spots identified. This study further stresses the need for antimicrobial drugs that are effective without inflicting damage upon the host, as a result of the resistant nature of MRSA towards a variety of antibiotics. One possible method that can be used is Photodynaic Therapy, due to its effectiveness against microorganisms in a localised infected area, through the use of local combined photosensitizers and light. In addition, to simplify the interaction process, heat-killed fluorescein isothiocyanate-labelled (FITC)-labelled MRSA and MSSA were used. The findings suggest that trophozoites Acanthamoeba trophozoites uptake of MRSA was significantly higher than MSSA which may act as "vehicle" that facilitates the spread of MRSA to susceptible hosts. This study showed that photodynamic therapy had a significant impact on bacterial survival. Photosensitizers m-Tetra (hydroxyphenyl) chlorin (m-THPC) and psoralen were very effective in eradicating bacteria. In antimicrobial assays, natural product eugenol derivatives demonstrated significant inhibitory activity on the growth of MRSA and exhibited dose-dependent cytotoxic effects on Acanthamoeba trophozoites. Future work should continue to identify more molecular mechanisms of Acanthamoeba interaction with MRSA and finding new strategies for effective antimicrobial therapies

Detecting Suicidality in Arabic Tweets Using Machine Learning and Deep Learning Techniques

Social media platforms have revolutionized traditional communication techniques by enabling people globally to connect instantaneously, openly, and frequently. People use social media to share personal stories and express their opinion. Negative emotions such as thoughts of death, self-harm, and hardship are commonly expressed on social media, particularly among younger generations. As a result, using social media to detect suicidal thoughts will help provide proper intervention that will ultimately deter others from self-harm and committing suicide and stop the spread of suicidal ideation on social media. To investigate the ability to detect suicidal thoughts in Arabic tweets automatically, we developed a novel Arabic suicidal tweets dataset, examined several machine learning models, including Na\"ive Bayes, Support Vector Machine, K-Nearest Neighbor, Random Forest, and XGBoost, trained on word frequency and word embedding features, and investigated the ability of pre-trained deep learning models, AraBert, AraELECTRA, and AraGPT2, to identify suicidal thoughts in Arabic tweets. The results indicate that SVM and RF models trained on character n-gram features provided the best performance in the machine learning models, with 86% accuracy and an F1 score of 79%. The results of the deep learning models show that AraBert model outperforms other machine and deep learning models, achieving an accuracy of 91\% and an F1-score of 88%, which significantly improves the detection of suicidal ideation in the Arabic tweets dataset. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to develop an Arabic suicidality detection dataset from Twitter and to use deep-learning approaches in detecting suicidality in Arabic posts

MUA'LLAGAT ZOHAYR IBN ABI SOLMA: ELEGANT PIECE OF ARABIC POETRY (1)

Zohayr ibn Abi Solma is identified as an eminent poet who produced poetry distinguished with preeminence in courtly and virtuous love. The study employs an analytical and critical methodology, attempting to elucidate the influence of virtuous love narrated by the poet in the first verse lines of his great Mua'llagah. It commences with a terse introductory synopsis shedding light on the importance of classical Arabic and its involvement with poetry. The paper attempts to prove, via the poetry of Zohayr ibn Abi Solma, the greatness of the Arabic classical poetry and demonstrate the aptitudes of the poet through his Mua'llagah. It is divided into four main parts. The first part deals with the greatness of the Arabic language then it moves to the second section that focuses on Arabic Poetry: Treasure of Wisdom. The third one sheds light on the poet's 'The Man and the Poet', and the last main part goes with an analytical and critical endeavor of the first ten verse lines of Al-Mua'llagah of Zohayr. It comes to an end with a conclusion. Keywords: Arabic Literature, Arabic Poetry, Courtly Love Poetry, Courteous Arabic Poetry, Umm Awfa, Virtuous Poetry

Critical and Comparative Evaluation of the English Translations of the Near-Synonymous Divine Names in the Quran

Despite the fact that many problematic areas in the English translations of the Qurān have been thoroughly investigated, no substantial work has so far been devoted to critically evaluating the translation of the Divine Names, which pose paramount challenges for all translators. Critical and evaluative studies of Qurān translations seem to avoid investigating and assessing the Divine Names, which are the most sensitive and delicate Qurānic terms. This study critically and comparatively investigates how accurate and consistent are the English renderings of these Divine Names; al-Asmā al-Ḥusnā, The Most Beautiful Names (MBNs) which are recurring terms in the Qurānic text. The complexity of meanings and morphological features of these Divine Names is evidently reflected in so many cases of inaccuracy as well as inconsistency in their English translations, particularly in the renderings of the near-synonymous root-sharing Names. Translators of the Qurān have unjustifiably used different corresponding terms for the very same Divine Name when it appears on more than one occasion, and sometimes in similar Qurānic contexts. Most Qurān translators have also inaccurately used the very same English corresponding terms to translate two, if not three, near-synonymous Divine Names, whether they share the same linguistic root or otherwise. For the purpose of this evaluative study, hundreds of occurrences of the root-sharing Divine Names in five well-known English translations, namely Pickthall (1930), A. Y. Ali (1936/1986), Arberry (1955), Hilali-Khan (1985) and Abdel-Haleem (2004), have been collected, analysed and critically and comparatively evaluated. The comparative evaluation of the English renderings of the Divine Names has revealed that all the five translations not only fall short in their attempts to distinguish between the near-synonymous Names, particularly the root-sharing ones, but prove unsuccessful in rendering them accurately and consistently. The study has also revealed that the translation of Arberry shows much better quality, in terms of accuracy and consistency, in rendering the root-sharing Divine Names than other translations do. In addition to critically revealing shortcomings, inaccuracies and inconsistencies of the renderings of the Divine Names, the study suggests the use of translation technology solutions (or computer-assisted tools), such as translation memory and bilingual concordances, to improve the quality and consistency of future Qurān translations in general, and the renderings of the recurring Divine Names in particular

Synthesis of nanoporous carbohydrate metal-organic framework and encapsulation of acetaldehyde

Gamma cyclodextrin (γ-CD) metal organic frameworks (CDMOFs) were synthesized by coordinating γ-CDs with potassium hydroxide (KOH), referred hereafter as CDMOF-a, and potassium benzoate (C7H5KO2), denoted as CDMOF-b. The obtained CDMOF structures were characterized using nitrogen sorption isotherm, thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). High surface areas were achieved by the γ-CD based MOF structures where the Langmuir specific surface areas (SSA) of CDMOF-a and CDMOF-b were determined as 1376 m2 g−1 and 607 m2 g−1; respectively. The dehydrated CDMOF structures demonstrated good thermal stability up to 250 °C as observed by the TGA studies. XRD results for CDMOF-a and CDMOF-b reveal a body centered-cubic (BCC) and trigonal crystal system; respectively. Due to its accessible porous structure and high surface area, acetaldehyde was successfully encapsulated in CDMOF-b. During the release kinetic studies, we observed peak release of 53 μg of acetaldehyde per g of CDMOF-b, which was 100 times greater than previously reported encapsulation in β-CD. However, aldol condensation reaction occurred during encapsulation of acetaldehyde into CDMOF-a. This research work demonstrates the potential to encapsulate volatile organic compounds in CDMOF-b, and their associated release for applications including food, pharmaceuticals and packaging