Modeling Market Volatility in Emerging Markets: The case of Daily Data in Amman Stock Exchange 1992-2004

This paper attempts to investigate the volatility of the Jordanian emerging stock market using daily observations from Amman Stock Exchange Composite Index (ASE) for the period from January 1, 1992 through December 31, 2004. Preliminary analysis of the data shows significant departure from normality. Moreover, returns and residuals show a significant level of serial correlation which is related to the conditional heteroskedasticity due to the time varying volatility. These results suggest that ARCH and GARCH models can provide good approximation for capturing the characteristics of ASE. The empirical analysis supports the hypothesis of symmetric volatility; hence, both good and bad news of the same magnitude have the same impact on the volatility level. Moreover, the volatility persists in the market for a long period of time, which makes ASE market inefficient; therefore, returns can be easily predicted and forecasted.Stock Exchange, Modeling Volatility, Emerging Markets, Jordan

Influence of Macro Synthetic Fibers on the Flexural Behavior of Reinforced Concrete Slabs with Opening

In this study, the flexural behavior of one-way RC slabs after adding the macro discontinuous structural synthetic fiber (DSSF) under different opening sizes is investigated. Based on the previously conducted research, the 0.55 DSSF percentage was utilized since it was reported as the optimum value for enhancing the slab's performance. Moreover, further increases in the DSSF percentages proved to have the same improvement obtained by the 0.55%. Experimental testing was carried out on sixty-four one-way slabs under the effects of square opening existence (with or without), heat levels of 20, 200, 400, and 600 °C, and opening sizes of 100, 150, and 200 mm. The opening was created at the maximum bending moment region at the slab's center between the two loading points. For comparison purposes, the tested slabs were divided into main groups based on the DSSF existence. It was found that the resulted improvement by adding the DSSF material is affected by the size of the created opening. Furthermore, results revealed an increasing linear relationship between the applied load and the deflection and between the longitudinal concrete strain and the steel reinforcement. Besides, duplicating the opening size enhances the ductility index value by a maximum improvement percentage of 13% under an opening size ratio of less than 4.5%, while the improvement percentage becomes less under a further increase in the opening size ratio. Moreover, initial stiffness is more affected by increasing the temperature values twice those recorded for the yielding stiffness. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-09-016 Full Text: PD

Efficacy of Deferasirox in Preventing Complications of Iron Overload in the Iron Overloaded Gerbil

Iron overload is a significant, world-wide problem that results in several chronic diseases including cardiovascular, hepatic and pancreatic complications.The newly developed, orally effective, iron chelating agent deferasirox is thought to offer tremendous promise as an alternative to deferoxamine. However, the efficacy and safety profile of deferasirox is not yet clear. In the present study, the efficacy of deferasirox in removing iron from target tissues has been examined using the gerbil model of iron overload. Deferasirox administration resulted in a significant reduction of iron from cardiac and hepatic tissue. In addition deferasirox reduced iron induced increase in cardiac and hepatic oxidative stress indices including ferritin expression, superoxide production, protein oxidation, and ERK1/2, P38, and JNK phosphorylation. These results indicate that deferasirox is capable of attenuating iron- induced oxidative stress. Continuing our investigation we observed that iron overload was also associated with an increase in hepatic cell death and upregulation of Bax/Bcl-22, Bad expression, and caspase-3 cleavage. These levels were significantly lower with deferasirox treatment suggesting a protective role against cell death. The primary overall goal of managing iron overload is to reduce/prevent cardiac or other organ complications. In the present study we examined the effect of iron overload on cardiac remodeling and functional parameters, and the effectiveness of chronic deferasirox administration to prevent or reduce these changes using electro- and echocardiographic procedures. Compared to control, iron overload was associated with left ventricular remodeling, arrhythmia, valve regurgitation, and a decline in cardiac function. These changes were highly preserved with deferasirox treatment. Following the preceding studies, we demonstrated a reduction in tissue iron with deferasirox treatment in the iron overloaded gerbil model. The findings of the present report established for the first time that deferasirox treatment is capable of attenuating iron-induced increase in oxidative stress indices, tissue ferritin protein expression, cell death, and more importantly, iron related cardiovascular alterations. These findings suggest that deferasirox may be useful in protection against iron-induced organ damage. The present report also provides data elaborating on the possible mechanism by which iron overload contributes to cellular injury, thereby allowing the development of better therapeutic regimens to control this disorder

Gender Differences in the Text Messaging of Young Jordanian University Students: An Analysis of Linguistic Feature

In spite of being extensively studied in face-to-face communication, gender differences remain widely unexplored within text messaging. The objectives of this study are to explore gender differences in the use of linguistic features in the text messaging of young Jordanian male and female university students with regard to (1) lexical features (abbreviations, acronyms, shortenings, borrowing, derivation, blending, compounding, and conversion), (2) syntactic features (deletion of subject pronoun, deletion of subject pronoun and auxiliary, deletion of copular/ modal verb, and deletion of article), and (3) typographical features (punctuation, letter and number homophones, phonetic spellings, onomatopoeic words, and emoticons). Theoretically, the study is guided by Bodomo and Lee‟s model of Technology-conditioned Language Change and Use and Herring‟s approach of Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis. Three techniques of qualitative data collection were used: open-ended questionnaires, user diaries and semi-structured interviews to elicit information on the features reflected in the text messages of the students. One hundred students responded to a questionnaire while twenty students participated in semi-structured interviews. The sixty students who participated in the user diaries provided a corpus of 1,612 text messages which were analyzed according to the gender of the senders. The messages were also analyzed for occurrences of lexical, syntactic, and typographical features, and compared for differences across gender. Lexical features were categorized based on Yule‟s (2009) categorization of word-formation processes while syntactic and typographical features were categorized according to Hård af Segrestad‟s (2002) and Thurlow's (2003) typology of linguistic features of text messaging. The findings of this study reveal the existence of gender differences in the text messages of the Jordanian students in all the three linguistic features. The females tend to use more lexical features than males, whereas the males tend to favor the deletion of syntactic features more than females. In terms of typographical features, the males tend to use more letter and number homophones and phonetic spelling than females while the females tend to use more punctuation, onomatopoeic words and emoticons than males. The findings corroborate with previous findings on differences across gender in text messaging as well as in face-to-face and computer-mediated communication. This study contributes to the literature related to the study of language in terms of the use of some of the linguistic features and their variations in text messaging between males and females. Some implications and recommendations are provided in this study

Effect of Inherent Anisotropy on Shear Strength Following Crushing of Natural Aqaba Subgrade Sand

Inherent anisotropy affects the overall shear strength of sand deposits. Soil inherent anisotropy was evaluated for pre-crushed Aqaba subgrade sand by deposition of soil grains onto an inclined surface. Crushing of Aqaba sand was induced by one-dimensional compression. Sand characteristic properties (mineralogical properties, grain size and crushing resistance strength) were determined by standard laboratory testing. Particle breakage factors and inter-particle void ratio were calculated from the initial and final gradations of the soil samples. Moreover, shear strength components for sand specimens were resolved. Inspection of the residual shear strength parameters showed an increase, where the amount of particle crushing increased regardless the level of the normal stress being applied. Furthermore, examining the effect of inherent anisotropy showed that a considerable amount of the dilation occurs when the particles tend to lie orthogonal to the horizontal plane regardless the extent of breakage

A New Trust Framework for E-Government in Cloud of Things

The concept of Cloud of Things becomes important for each e-government, facilitating its way of work, increasing its productivity and all that leading to cost savings. It will likely have a significant impact on the e-governments in the future. E-government diversity goals face many challenges. Trust is a major challenge when deploying Cloud of Things in e-government. In this paper, a new trust framework is proposed that supports trust between Internet of Things devices interconnected to the Cloud in order to support e-government services to be delivered in trusted manner. The proposed framework has been applied to a use case study to ensure the trustworthiness of the proposed framework in a real mission. The results show that the proposed trust framework is useful to ensuring a trust environment for Cloud of Things in order to continue providing and gathering data needed to provide services to users through the E-government services

A New Trust Framework for E-Government in Cloud of Things

The concept of Cloud of Things becomes important for each e-government, facilitating its way of work, increasing its productivity and all that leading to cost savings. It will likely have a significant impact on the e-governments in the future. E-government diversity goals face many challenges. Trust is a major challenge when deploying Cloud of Things in e-government. In this paper, a new trust framework is proposed that supports trust between Internet of Things devices interconnected to the Cloud in order to support e-government services to be delivered in trusted manner. The proposed framework has been applied to a use case study to ensure the trustworthiness of the proposed framework in a real mission. The results show that the proposed trust framework is useful to ensuring a trust environment for Cloud of Things in order to continue providing and gathering data needed to provide services to users through the E-government services

Performance of Asphalt Mixes Containing RAP

Using Reclaimed Asphalt Pavement (RAP) in asphalt mixes has become a common practice in many countries. Experience indicated that the recycling of asphalt pavements is very advantageous from different perspectives. Some of the advantages of utilizing RAP include conservation of asphalt and aggregate resources, conservation of energy and reduction in life-cycle cost. In spite of that, RAP has never been used in Jordan. In this study, the suitability of asphalt mixes using RAP was investigated. Two hot asphalt mixes were prepared following gradations recommended by the Ministry of Public Works and Housing (MPWH/ Jordan). Marshall mix design procedure was used to determine the optimum asphalt content. The first mix was composed of 100% fresh aggregate and virgin asphalt and the second mix was composed of 30% RAP and 70% fresh aggregates and virgin asphalt. Marshal stability, loss of Marshall Stability, water sensitivity, indirect tensile strength, dynamic creep and fatigue tests were performed on samples of the two mixes. Comparing the results of the conducted tests indicated that the use of RAP in Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) was advantageous in all properties measured except for the fatigue test, where shorter fatigue life was observed. The mix containing RAP showed less reduction in both loss in stability and loss in indirect tensile strength, improved stripping resistance and better creep performance than the mixture with fresh aggregates. Therefore, it is preferred to use mixes containing RAP in highways, where fatigue is not the predominant distress type

Possible Index for Marine Pollution from Scleractinean Corals in Northern Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan

The coral nubbins of Stylophora sp., Pocillopora sp., Acropora sp., Fungia sp., and Porites sp. were taken from shallow depths of about 5 m by SCUBS diving. Another set of coral samples were collected in front of the Marine Science Station for incubation experiments to study the resistance of corals to different concentrations of heavy metals ranged between 0.1 to 50 ppm. The skeleton and tissue layers of all coral samples were isolated for samples, digested (using a mixture of Nitric and Hydrochloric acids) and were analyzed to determine the concentrations of Cd, Cu, Pb, Cr, Zn, and Ni using Flame Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (FAAS). However, the lowest concentrations were found along the marine park including the Marine Science Station, with lower contamination of ambient waters as heavy metals concentration in corals reflects the health of marine environment. The highest concentrations of all heavy metals (Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, Cr, and Ni) in the coral skeletons were accumulated in Pocillopora species whereas the lowest concentrations were recorded in Porites species and the rest coral species could be arranged in the following ranking order (from high to low concentrations): Pocillopora sp.> Acropora sp.> Stylophora sp.> Fungia sp.> Porites sp. The incubation experiment showed that the toxicity of the individual metals increased in all coral species with increasing metal doze and time of exposure until total death was reached. The coral species resistance to death for all heavy metals (except for Nickel) can be arranged in the following ranking order (from low to high): Stylophora sp.< Acropora sp.< Pocillopora sp.< Fungia sp.< Porites sp. The coral species Porities was the most resistant species. Copper was found as the most toxic metal to all coral species compared with the toxicity of Pb, Cd or Zn. The toxicity of the studied heavy metals (except Ni) to all corals species can be arranged in the following order (from high to low): Cu>Pb>Cd>Zn. It is generally concluded that the pollutions levels of heavy metals along the Jordanian coast of the Gulf of Aqaba are still relatively low and the coral reef communities are healthy. Corals are suitable to be used as proxy tools to record environmental pollution (bio-indicators) from the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. Keywords: Heavy metals, Corals, Gulf of Aqaba, Red Sea.