The Turkish role in the Eastern Mediterranean region (2018-2020)

This study provided a detailed description to the Turkish maneuvers and interactions with the most important events in the East-Mediterranean, and the way Turkey had played a balanced role between its strategic interests and its political stand toward the most important international issues, taking into consideration its internal front and the ruling party interests. This study tried to understand and unveil the Turkish leadership mind and its ambitions to become a regional power that has the well, power, and influence to enforce its vision and ambition especially in regard to the gas and North Syria. This study came to highlight how effective Turkey were in influencing the international arenas through its moves and influencing the public opinions in those targeted countries in one hand, and through direct and indirect military intervention on the other hand. Turkey has always capitalized on its geostrategic location linking three continents and the importance of the East-Mediterranean geo-economical value and position especially in the maritime, energy supply, and gas routs to Europe. Turkey’s ambition to become a global provider and controller of energy supplies has resulted in different political and military confrontations. This study has also tackled the legal arguments that different parties used in their conflicts over the East-Mediterranean gas. The descriptive and analytical method has been applied in this thesis/study in addition to the published analysis by different parties and applying such on the theories applied

The role of social worker in the success of social integration for disabled children Analytical study in the reality of Jordanian society

The study aimed at understanding the role of the social worker in the process of social integration for disabled children in Jordan through different programs and institutions because of the local and global awareness of the necessity for integrated programs for disabled children. It also aimed at integrating and activating children in the process of rehabilitation in order to regain their interaction, adaptation and productivity; so the special disabled can play an active and positive role in their community.  The study found that the social worker job with disabled children and with their environment that they interact with; play a significant role in developing the social skills for disabled children and in preparing the society to accept them as an active member in their society. Key Words: The role, disabled children, social integration. DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-8-05 Publication date: April 30th 202

Social media usage and entrepreneurial development amongst 18- to 25-year-olds in Hail, Saudi Arabia

The recent transformation endorsed by the Vision 2030 development plan in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has instigated a negotiation of modern values and norms in a youthful conservative nation. The rise of social media usage in Saudi Arabia and specifically in Hail has enabled these negotiations due to considerable technological advancement and its adoption by a youthful nation where almost 72% of the population are below the age of 35. The Saudi social media scene has not only become a recognisable career path, driven by the vast economic and socio-cultural reform, but a space where intersections of a power dynamic is visible and complex.Two main theoretical approaches have been adopted to examine and explore social media usage and entrepreneurial development. The first approach is Bourdieu’s work of field, habitus, and capital (1977, 1984, 1986) and more recent scholarly work on social, cultural, economic, and symbolic capitals. The second approach is informed by scholarship on presentational culture, new media, and social media studies. Although both theoretical approaches are from a western viewpoint, the experiences of Saudi youth provide new insight into the contextual negotiations between old values and norms and modernity in an era of development. In this qualitative study, the data will speak for themselves through the experiences and perspectives of social media users and entrepreneurs explored across an open-ended survey, focus groups and semi-structured interviews. While this work is focused on Saudi, it offers lessons and insights for other similar nations, or even for the west. The study raises questions relating to how Hail’s young men and women who maintain old values will utilise social media platforms to navigate and negotiate their online identity into an online entrepreneurial identity. Furthermore, having a diverse sample for each method – for instance, influencers and micro-celebrities from both rural and urban backgrounds – enabled me to capture different dimensions of the same entrepreneurial process. This entrepreneurial process identified different identity constructions and identity performances and crosschecking these practices with Hail’s young men and women demonstrates the complex ways in which the Saudi social media entrepreneur can participate in and contribute to the attention economy in this new Saudi era

Challenges to Media Organisations due to Anti-terrorism Laws

The twenty-first century has witnessed a significant increase in terrorist activities across the world, especially after the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 2001. The phenomenon, of international terrorism, represented a huge challenge to states and civil societies. The governments’ reactions were swift and strong, primarily in the enactment of anti-terrorism laws and the strengthening of the cooperation in security issues. However, despite a general consensus as regards the necessity to legislate in the face of the growing threat of terrorism, the provisions, of the new laws, were criticised heavily by the media; human rights; and civil liberties organisations; and the public in general. The main grievance was tension between the aim of ensuring security and concerns about reducing civil liberties. In view of their exceptional role in society, the independent media, became one of the indirect victims of the new legislation, with severe restrictions imposed on journalists. This thesis examined the various legislative approaches. The conclusion is that, without properly addressing security concerns, the new laws affected media organisations unduly

Investigations into Drug Delivery to the Eye: Nanoparticle Comparisons

Eye disorders are on the rise as a result of an ageing population, an increasing obesity problem and a growth in the number of diabetic patients. Conventional ophthalmic formulations do not maintain therapeutic drug concentration in the target tissues for a long duration due to the physiological and anatomical eye barriers. Novel delivery systems such as nanoparticles have been explored to enhance the delivery of therapeutic agents to the eye. These delivery systems have in general been assessed using in-vivo animal models, despite ethical concerns for animal wellbeing. The aims of this thesis were to synthesise and characterise four amphiphilic polymers, subsequently prepare and characterise four nano sized polymeric self-assemblies loaded with triamcinolone acetonide (TA), develop an in-vitro porcine eye model and to evaluate the permeation of nano sized self-assemblies using the developed model. Four comb-shaped amphiphilic polymers (Pa5, Pa5-MPEG, Ch5 and Da10) were synthesised with a high yield (>81%) and good reproducibility. These polymers formed spontaneous positive self-assemblies in aqueous media (114-314 nm). The mean hydrodynamic diameters of the positive spontaneous self-assemblies entrapping TA were in the range of 200–334 nm loading high concentrations (455-1263 μg mL-1) of TA, much greater than the TA inherent aqueous solubility or concentrations achieved using conventional solubilisers. A porcine in-vitro eye model was developed to assess drug permeation through anterior and posterior ocular tissues. The model was partially validated using tritiated water and a series of hydrophilic markers with increasing molecular weights. The integrity of porcine ocular tissue was checked by monitoring the permeation of tritiated water to ensure the membrane intactness. Tritiated water permeation at 15 min was exploited as a potential method to normalise drug flux, as tritiated water percentage permeation at 15 min had an inverse relationship with tissue thickness (R2 = 0.66), to reduce the inherent variability between tissue samples thus increasing the accuracy of the in-vitro eye model. Four markers (fluorescein sodium salt, 4, 10 and 20 kDa FITC-dextran) were used for the purpose of investigating the effect of increasing molecular weight on ocular tissue permeability. The permeability of the markers displayed an inverse relationship and abrupt decline with Mw in terms of the permeability through scleral and corneal tissues of human and porcine and the molecular weight of the markers. The developed porcine in-vitro eye model showed good correlation with the human in-vitro model providing strong evidence it can be used to screen potential formulations before testing in-vivo. The TA loaded self-assemblies and a few chemical enhancers (glutamic acid, tween 80, chitosan, Pa5 and elevate temperature (45 °C)), selected to assist drug delivery via two routes (paracellular and transcellular), were tested using the developed in-vitro eye model. The results showed there was no marker permeation enhancement effect in porcine and human ocular tissues using chemical enhancers. In summary, a porcine in-vitro eye model was developed to assess hydrophobic and hydrophilic penetrant permeation across anterior and posterior ocular tissues. The porcine in-vitro eye model showed good correlation with the human in-vitro model providing strong evidence that the porcine in-vitro eye model can be used to screen potential formulations before testing in-vivo using the porcine model which ultimately might correlate well with the in-vivo human responses. Although TA self-assemblies did not significantly increase drug flux through human or porcine scleral tissues, it might be of interest for ophthalmic topically administered formulations due to their positive charge and small nano size

Training Needs for the Professional Development of Social-Studies Teachers at the intermediate Stage in Al-Jouf in Light of Modern Teaching Trends: A Field Study

This study is an attempt to identify the training needs of social-studies teachers at the intermediate stage in Al-Jouf in light of modern teaching trends. It Focuses lower case F on the six axes of systemic planning, varied teaching strategies, information and communication technology, innovative enrichment activities in teaching, classroom-management skills, and diverse assessment methods reference needed. The study was done based on 120 people from Aljouf region which includes the city of Sakaka, Duma, Garra and Zallum. Its subjects are 60 male teachers and 60 female teachers carefully selected how? For the application of the final form of the questionnaire. It relies on 9 tables showing the cities and axes of the study, the training needs for each axis, and the analyses of findings. It finally provides a number of suggestions and recommendations for further future field studies in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In other words, the present study is a kind of investigation into the training needs of the target teachers with an aim to enhance their professional development in an age characterized by its rapid change and great technological advances