Factors Affecting Attitudes of Undergraduate Students

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors affecting attitude of undergraduate students toward students with disabilities. To achieve this purpose, Attitude Toward Disabled Persons Scale (ATDP) was administered on a sample consisted of 493 undergraduate students which were randomly selected from three Omani universities. The results of the study revealed that the general overall attitude of the participants were negative. Gender differences were detected. Female students scored significantly higher on the attitudes scale compared to their male counterparts. In addition, senior students attained higher scores compared to freshman, sophomore, and junior students

What is the Status of Omani Parents on their Children’s Healthy Lifestyle?

The purpose of this study was to document the significance of the practices employed by parents that contribute to children’s healthy lifestyle in Oman. Those practices encompassed the physical activity and inactivity, sedentary behaviour, nutritional knowledge, and its reflection on their children at early childhood class. Subjects consisted of 237 male and female parents of kindergarten children in the Sultanate of Oman. The researchers developed a twenty-three and a twenty-item questionnaire intended to measure the degree of parent involvement in their children's impact at acceptable levels of validity and reliability. (Amazingly, it was found that parents’ healthy lifestyle were low in their habit practices (low in engagement to physical activity, sports and daily life activity) which showed a trend of sedentary lifestyle. Meanwhile, they did not encourage their children to participate in physical activity nor control them from staying away from being in front of TV screen and video games, too. In addition, their nutritional knowledge also scored low which affected their children’s health negatively. It is, therefore, suggested that lifestyle concept should be inculcated in the learning process for children, and further analysis be made as to what extent the demographic category may influence parents’ involvement towards their children’s healthy lifestyle.

Inclusion of an Autistic Child in Kindergarten Facility: A Case Study

This study aimed to investigate the effects of inclusion of an autistic child, at entrance age of four years and seven months, into the Child Care Center of the Sultan Qaboos University. The study was designed to specifically answer: (1) Which domains of the ASDA scale did „Ahmad‟ show notable improvement? (2) Which areas of the academic program did „Ahmad‟ show notable improvement? The program at the Center is a bilingual mainstream program in Arabic and English. It is a highly structured and individualized program which covers all of the developmental domains. It caters for two groups of mixed age children from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. The study used the Arabic Scale for Detecting Autism – ASDA (Al Qaryouti & Ababneh, 2006) along with an entrance test and parent interview. The result of this assessment indicated that the subject of this study had autism. After six months, a further application of the scale showed that significant improvement had occurred, particularly in the communication and social interaction domains. Concurrently, the subject made marked progress in his academic studies, notably in the areas of math and language. A further application of the scale a year after the second indicated that the lack of severity of symptoms no longer warranted the autistic label. Inclusion of autistic children in a normal setting can have a positive impact on both social behavior and academic skills, if a well-structured program and a controlled learning environment in the setting of adequately training teachersis applied

Response of Polycrystalline Solar Cell Outputs to Visible Spectrum and other Light Sources-a Case Study

In this case study, two polycrystalline solar modules were installed outdoors (irradiated by sunlight) and indoors (irradiated by artificial lights). The solar cells in both cases were installed using different color filters that allowed the passage of certain light frequencies. The amount of energy produced by each module were measured and compared to a reference module with no filter. The results indicated the variable response of polycrystalline solar cells to natural and artificial light sources, being more responsive in both cases to red band color as could be deduced from their % current outputs (72.5% sunlight radiation; 84.38% artificial light sources). Other colors, including yellow, green, orange and violet afforded acceptable outputs. The results indicated that electrical outputs of indoor solar cells decreased when colored filters were used, but red filter in general afforded the maximum outputs, for both the artificially radiated indoor and naturally radiated outdoor solar cells. The case study suggests the possible complementary advantage of using indoor mounted solar cells for the production of electricity during artificial illumination period of the day

What is the Status of Omani Parents on their Children’s Healthy Lifestyle?

The purpose of this study was to document the significance of the practices employed by parents that contribute to children’s healthy lifestyle in Oman. Those practices encompassed the physical activity and inactivity, sedentary behaviour, nutritional knowledge, and its reflection on their children at early childhood class. Subjects consisted of 237 male and female parents of kindergarten children in the Sultanate of Oman. The researchers developed a twenty-three and a twenty-item questionnaire intended to measure the degree of parent involvement in their children's impact at acceptable levels of validity and reliability. (Amazingly, it was found that parents’ healthy lifestyle were low in their habit practices (low in engagement to physical activity, sports and daily life activity) which showed a trend of sedentary lifestyle. Meanwhile, they did not encourage their children to participate in physical activity nor control them from staying away from being in front of TV screen and video games, too. In addition, their nutritional knowledge also scored low which affected their children’s health negatively. It is, therefore, suggested that lifestyle concept should be inculcated in the learning process for children, and further analysis be made as to what extent the demographic category may influence parents’ involvement towards their children’s healthy lifestyle

Omani Stakeholders’ Preferences for Educational Placement of Students with Disabilities

The purpose of the current study was to survey the stakeholders’ opinions of the best educational placement setting for students with disabilities in the Sultanate of Oman. Two thou- sand four hundred and thirty stakeholders participated in this study. The findings provided ev- idence that the majority of the Omani stakeholders prefer educating students with disabilities in regular schools over separate facilities. In addition, the stakeholders’ preference on the continu-um of placement options varied significantly. The results also suggested that the stakeholders’ preference for educating students in the regular school setting versus a separate facility varied according to the type of disability. Moreover, a significant association between the stakeholders’ role and their preference of educational placement setting for students with disabilities was found. However, the findings revealed that there was no significant relationship between the stakeholders’ gender and their educational settings preference. Finally, educational services for children with disabilities in Oman were discussed and suggestions were provided to improve these services

Deaggregation of Probabilistic Ground Motions for Selected Jordanian Cities

Probabilistic Seismic Hazard Analysis (PSHA) approach was adopted to investigate seismic hazard distribution across Jordan. Potential sources of seismic activities in the region were identified, and their earthquake recurrence relationships were developed from instrumental and historical data. Maps of peak ground acceleration and spectral accelerations (T=0.2 and T=1.0 sec.) of 2% and 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years were developed. This study deaggregated the PSHA results of 2% and 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years results of twelve Jordanian cities to help understand the relative control of these sources in terms of distances and magnitudes. Results indicated that seismic hazard across these cities is mainly controlled by area sources located along the Dead Sea Transform (DST) fault system. Cities located at short distances from the DST tend to show close deaggregation behavior. Some discrepancies may exist due to the proximity or remoteness of these cities relative to the DST seismic sources and local seismicity. The modal or most probable distance distribution indicated that the distance to the earthquake which contributes most to the hazard at each city is mainly controlled by shaking along faults associated with near seismic area sources. The influence of adjacent seismic sources to the seismic hazard of each city is more evident for the long period spectral acceleration. Distant sources, such as the eastern Mediterranean, Cyprus, Suez and the southern region of the Gulf of Aqaba are relatively low, but can not be neglected due to the intrinsic uncertainties and incomplete seismic data

Influence of Storage Temperature and Duration of Tomato Leaf Samples on Proline Content

In arid and semi-arid countries such as Jordan, shortage in water sources might affect agricultural development and reduces the effectiveness of economic benefits of most crops planted in such areas. Tomato is an important agricultural crop and faces severe drought stress due to climate changes, therefore, measurement of proline accumulation in plant tissues is used as an indicator for drought stress tolerance. This research was conducted at Jarash University Campus in northern Jordan. A field experiment was carried out to investigate the impact of different storage temperature (+4ºC, - 20ºC and -80ºC) and different storage durations (0, 3, 6 and 11 weeks) on proline content in five different Jordanian tomato landraces. Results indicated that the average free proline content for samples tested directly after leaves collection was 7.1 µmol/g. Proline content in leaves stored at +4 ºC for 3, 6, and 11 weeks was 4.8, 1.8, and 1.1µmol/g, respectively, while for -20ºC was 11.8, 7.9, and 9.5 µmol/g for samples stored for 3, 6, 11 weeks respectively. In contrast the highest values for these parameters were obtained from samples stored at -80ºC, the average measured values of free proline content were 9.5, 7.8, and 12.9 µmol/g at 3, 6, and 11 weeks of storage, respectively. Based on the results obtained by this research, it is recommended to measure proline content directly after leaves collection. However, for large number of samples, keeping the samples at -20ºC not longer than six weeks could be a solution. Finally, we highly recommend the development of in-field method for measurement of free proline content

Benchmarking techno-economic performance of greenhouses with different technology levels in a hot humid climate

Greenhouse agriculture is expected to play a critical role in sustainable crop production in the coming decades, opening new markets in climate zones that have been traditionally unproductive for agriculture. Extreme hot and humid conditions, prevalent in rapidly growing economies including the Arabian Peninsula, present unique design and operational challenges to effective greenhouse climate control. These challenges are often poorly understood by local operators and inadequately researched in the literature. This study addresses this knowledge gap by presenting, for the first time, a comprehensive set of benchmarks for water and energy usage, CO2 emissions (CO2e) contribution, and economic performance for low-, mid-, and high-tech greenhouse designs in such climates. Utilising a practical and adaptable model-based framework, the analysis reveals the high-tech design generated the best results for economic return, achieving a 4.9-year payback period with superior water efficiency compared to 5.8 years for low-tech and 7.0 years for mid-tech; however, the high-tech design used significantly more energy to operate its mechanical cooling system, corresponding with higher CO2e per unit area (8.3 and 4.0 times higher than the low- and mid-tech, respectively). These benchmarks provide new insights for greenhouse operators, researchers, and other stakeholders, facilitating the development of effective greenhouse design and operational strategies tailored to meet the challenges of hot and humid climates

Benchmarking techno-economic performance of greenhouses with different technology levels in a hot humid climate

Greenhouse agriculture is expected to play a critical role in sustainable crop production in the coming decades, opening new markets in climate zones that have been traditionally unproductive for agriculture. Extreme hot and humid conditions, prevalent in rapidly growing economies including the Arabian Peninsula, present unique design and operational challenges to effective greenhouse climate control. These challenges are often poorly understood by local operators and inadequately researched in the literature. This study addresses this knowledge gap by presenting, for the first time, a comprehensive set of benchmarks for water and energy usage, CO2 emissions (CO2e) contribution, and economic performance for low-, mid-, and high-tech greenhouse designs in such climates. Utilising a practical and adaptable model-based framework, the analysis reveals the high-tech design generated the best results for economic return, achieving a 4.9-year payback period with superior water efficiency compared to 5.8 years for low-tech and 7.0 years for mid-tech; however, the high-tech design used significantly more energy to operate its mechanical cooling system, corresponding with higher CO2e per unit area (8.3 and 4.0 times higher than the low- and mid-tech, respectively). These benchmarks provide new insights for greenhouse operators, researchers, and other stakeholders, facilitating the development of effective greenhouse design and operational strategies tailored to meet the challenges of hot and humid climates