Social Media and Political Participation in Saudi\ud Arabia: The Case of the 2009 Floods in Jeddah

The aim of this study was to explore the use of social media for political participation in Saudi Arabia taking the case of the Jeddah 2009 floods as an example. Data were collected for this qualitative study between 2010 and 2012 and were analyzed with the help of NVivo, a software for qualitative data analysis. The study followed the principles of thematic analysis to analyze 40 posts and the readers’ comments on them from YouTube, Facebook, an online community, and Al Arabiya site. The findings of this study show that people used social media to express their feelings and emotions about the loss of lives, express their opinions about what happened and call for action about what should happen or organize themselves to take part in volunteer work. The results of this research contribute to an understanding of the role of social media in encouraging political\ud participation in countries where participation in public affairs in some cases is not encouraged and in others, for example, street protests is not permitted

Variations in the insertion of the extensor hallucis longus muscle

Reports that describe abnormalities of the muscles and tendons of the leg and foot are important with regard to understanding the function of the lower limb and correlating these abnormalities with the clinical aspects. Variations in the insertion of the extensor hallucis longus muscle were studied in 60 adult human cadavers. Three different patterns of insertion were noticed. Pattern I (65%): the extensor hallucis longus muscle had a single tendinous insertion on the dorsal aspect of the base of the distal phalanx of the big toe. Pattern II (26.67%): the muscle terminated in two tendons. Pattern III (8.33%): the muscle terminated in three tendinous slips. Various sites of insertion of the extensor hallucis longus muscle were recorded other than the dorsal aspect of the base of the distal phalanx of the big toe. These were the dorsal aspect of the base of the proximal phalanx of the big toe and the capsule of the first metatarso-phalangeal joint or a connection with the tendon of the extensor hallucis brevis. The frequency of occurrence of lateral deviation of the big toe at the metatarsphalangeal joint (hallux valgus) was recorded. It is suggested that the presence of these variations in the insertion of the extensor hallucis longus muscle may have a role in explaining its association with hallux valgus

ICT Women Professionals\u27 Perceptions of Workplace Ethical Problems: A Quantitative Survey

Which ethical problems are most frequently experienced by ICT women professionals? Which ethical problems experienced by ICT women professionals are of most concern to them as individuals? A quantitative survey of 2,315 Australian ICT professionals of whom 15.4 percent were females revealed that the top 15 most frequently faced ethical problems that the females identified were nearly identical to those identified by males. Of these 15 problems, five were judged to affect females personally. These are overworking staff, blaming others for own mistakes, bullying, unprofessional behavior, and discrimination. Of these five problems, gender only predicted three problems that affect females personally, namely overworking staff, bullying, and discrimination, which women also believed occur more frequently than other problems. Compared to males, a higher percentage of females who selected overworking staff, bullying, and discrimination believed unethical behavior either occurs occasionally or frequently. More importantly, a higher proportion of females compared to males (especially managers and consultants) witnessed or experienced staff being overworked in their workplaces. Similarly, a higher proportion of females compared to males (especially managers and consultants) witnessed or experienced bullying in their workplaces. Finally, a higher proportion of females compared to males (especially man- agers and consultants) witnessed or experienced discrimination in their workplaces. The fact that female consultants and mangers selected these problems as of most concern to them may suggest that the experienced women professionals have a greater concern about these problems than women in junior roles. Regardless, these results are both surprising and concerning and therefore deserving of attention in a future study

The Role of State Boredom, State of Fear of Missing Out and State Loneliness in State Phubbing

The term “phubbing” describes individuals’ engagement with their smartphones during face-to-face conversations. Because some scholars treated phubbing as a trait experience, the predictors they investigated to explain this behavior have also been trait predictors. This paper reports on a study that used the state phubbing scale, which took into account both the fleeting and the psychological properties of this behavior, and applied a set of state predictors that perceived phubbing as a state experience (state boredom, state of fear of missing out and state loneliness). Data was collected using an online survey. The results from the multiple regression analysis revealed that the state of fear of missing out was a stronger predictor of state phubbing with state boredom also predicting state phubbing to a lesser extent. State loneliness didn’t predict this behaviour. Understanding the immediate predictors of phubbing is important, considering the negative effects of this behavior on offline relationships

Subsystem interconnection and near optimum control of discretebalanced systems

The relationship between subsystem interconnection of discrete balanced systems and the Hankel singular values is explored. Upper bounds on the spectral norm of the submatrices of the discrete balanced representation are derived by approximating the matrix Riccati equation by its power series expansion with respect to two scalar parameters related to the Hankel singular values. For diagonalizable symmetric discrete-time systems, the relation between the eigenvalues of the subsystems and the eigenvalues of the overall system is explored. It is shown that an upper bound on the distance between corresponding eigenvalues in these two sets is related to the ratio of the Hankel singular value

Online Communities in Saudi Arabia: an ethnographic study

This paper presents part of a research project about online communities in Saudi Arabia. The paper will address one of the research sub-questions, that is: What are the key features of participation in online communities in Saudi Arabia? The results presented in this paper are drawn from one of the techniques of data collection used in this research, that is, silent observation, which was conducted over a one-year period. In addition, the paper will discuss briefly the research design, including the research procedures. In its final section, some of the findings from this part of the project are presented

Women in Iran: The effect of marital status and the presence of family dependents at home on their use of the internet

Few studies have analyzed how women in Iranian communities use the internet. Our study investigates the effect of marital status and the presence of family dependents at home on their extent of internet use. Our analysis found that while higher incomes, having internet at home, being a student, and having higher qualifications can all increase Iranian women’s chances of using the internet more regularly, looking after a husband or having family dependants at home can have a significant and negative effect on their ability to use the internet on a regular basis. The findings from our small study suggest that less time to access the internet may mean less opportunities for Iranian women to contribute to their communities such as by voicing their opinions and concerns about societal issues that matter to them and by petitioning for change. It may mean less opportunities for participating in political events such as elections

3-Dimensional advanced solution for lunar descent and landing

A 3-dimensional advanced guidance scheme is necessary to perform a successful precise lunar landing mission. This paper outlines a 3-dimensional comparison of different methods of solution of motion control equations for guidance scheme of lunar descent. It also proposes a 3-dimensional advanced solution that allows a full depiction for a descent vehicle motion from orbital states down to the final landing event. In the conventional 2-dimensional methods of solution, some inadequate assumptions exist that limit the validity of the solutions. The proposed research solves those problems and eventually allows a complete representation of the descent module motion for successful pinpoint lunar landing

Model reduction via balanced realizations: an extension andfrequency weighting techniques

Two model-reduction methods for discrete systems related to balanced realizations are described. The first is a technique which utilizes the least controllable and observable subsystem in deriving a balanced discrete reduced-order model. For this technique as L ∞ norm bound on the reduction error is given. The second method is a frequency-weighting technique for discrete- and continuous-time systems where the input-normal or output-normal realizations are modified to include a simple frequency weighting. For this technique, L∞ norm bounds on the weighted reduction errors are obtaine