Intention to use e-government services among the academic staff in Saudi universities

E-government diffusion and usage is a global topic that concerns many countries worldwide. E-government is a way for providing services of government over online channels of communication to its citizens. Saudi Arabia has implemented a program of e-government in 2005 to encourage performance of public sectors through acquiring the benefits of Information Communication Technology (ICT) advances. This study focuses on the factors that influence intention to use e-government among the academic staff in Saudi Arabia. In addition, this study is to identify the mediating role of e-government awareness on the relationships between social influence, trust of internet and trust in intermediaries and intention to use e-government and the mediating role of perceived risk on the relationships between trust of internet and trust in intermediaries and intention to use e-government. Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), this study integrated these factors to examine their influences on intention to use e-government. This study utilized a quantitative approach using a survey to reflect consumers’ perspectives towards e-government usage. To examine the hypothesized model, the data were collected from the academic staff working in Saudi public universities. This study employed Partial Least Squares techniques to confirm the validity and reliability of the measurement model and to examine the structural relationships. The findings of the study confirmed the influences of social influence, e-government awareness, trust in intermediary and perceived risk on intention to use e-government. Further, awareness of e-government is influenced by social influence, trust in Internet and trust in intermediary and mediates the relationship between these factors and intention to use e-government. Trust in Internet factor emerged as significant predictor of consumers’ risk perceptions and mediates the relationship between this factor and intention to use e-government. This study has important implications for e-government practitioners, researchers and policy decision makers interested in the implementation of e-governmen

Antiplatelet Intake Medications for Patients Undergoing Dental Surgery

This study aims at exploring the patients taking antiplatelet medications who are undergoing dental surgery, physicians and dentists must weigh the bleeding risks in continuing antiplatelet medications versus the thrombotic risks in interrupting antiplatelet medications. Bleeding complications requiring more than local measures for hemostasis are rare after dental surgery in patients taking antiplatelet medications. Conversely, the risk for thrombotic complications after interruption of antiplatelet therapy for dental procedures apparently is significant, although small. When a clinician is faced with a decision to continue or interrupt antiplatelet therapy for a dental surgical patient, the decision comes down to “bleed or die.” That is, there is a remote chance that continuing antiplatelet therapy will result in a (nonfatal) bleeding problem requiring more than local measures for hemostasis versus a small but significant chance that interrupting antiplatelet therapy will result in a (possibly fatal) thromboembolic complication. The decision is simple: It is time to stop interrupting antiplatelet therapy for dental surgery

Improving Detection of DeepFakes through Facial Region Analysis in Images

\ua9 2023 by the authors. In the evolving landscape of digital media, the discipline of media forensics, which encompasses the critical examination and authentication of digital images, videos, and audio recordings, has emerged as an area of paramount importance. This heightened significance is predominantly attributed to the burgeoning concerns surrounding the proliferation of DeepFakes, which are highly realistic and manipulated media content, often created using advanced artificial intelligence techniques. Such developments necessitate a profound understanding and advancement in media forensics to ensure the integrity of digital media in various domains. Current research endeavours are primarily directed towards addressing a common challenge observed in DeepFake datasets, which pertains to the issue of overfitting. Many suggested remedies centre around the application of data augmentation methods, with a frequently adopted strategy being the incorporation of random erasure or cutout. This method entails the random removal of sections from an image to introduce diversity and mitigate overfitting. Generating disparities between the altered and unaltered images serves to inhibit the model from excessively adapting itself to individual samples, thus leading to more favourable results. Nonetheless, the stochastic nature of this approach may inadvertently obscure facial regions that harbour vital information necessary for DeepFake detection. Due to the lack of guidelines on specific regions for cutout, most studies use a randomised approach. However, in recent research, face landmarks have been integrated to designate specific facial areas for removal, even though the selection remains somewhat random. Therefore, there is a need to acquire a more comprehensive insight into facial features and identify which regions hold more crucial data for the identification of DeepFakes. In this study, the investigation delves into the data conveyed by various facial components through the excision of distinct facial regions during the training of the model. The goal is to offer valuable insights to enhance forthcoming face removal techniques within DeepFake datasets, fostering a deeper comprehension among researchers and advancing the realm of DeepFake detection. Our study presents a novel method that uses face cutout techniques to improve understanding of key facial features crucial in DeepFake detection. Moreover, the method combats overfitting in DeepFake datasets by generating diverse images with these techniques, thereby enhancing model robustness. The developed methodology is validated against publicly available datasets like FF++ and Celeb-DFv2. Both face cutout groups surpassed the Baseline, indicating cutouts improve DeepFake detection. Face Cutout Group 2 excelled, with 91% accuracy on Celeb-DF and 86% on the compound dataset, suggesting external facial features’ significance in detection. The study found that eyes are most impactful and the nose is least in model performance. Future research could explore the augmentation policy’s effect on video-based DeepFake detection

Overview of the Parents’ Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Children Vaccinations: A Systematic Review

Background: It is the parents' responsibility to vaccinate their children. As a result, parents' attitudes, knowledge, and beliefs about vaccination are critical because they influence their activities toward timely and full immunization.  Objectives: This systematic review comprehensively investigated the recently published literature on parents’ knowledge regarding children’s vaccination.  Methods: PubMed, SCOPUS, Web of Science, Science Direct, and Google Scholar were systematically searched to include the relevant literature. Rayyan QRCI was used throughout this systematic approach. Results & interpretation: This review included twenty-four studies with a total of 13082 parents, and 70.9% were mothers. Knowledge level about children’s vaccination among parents was significantly related to their fathers' age, education level, women's employment status, and family type. Younger mothers were found to have a higher level of expertise. Good knowledge levels and positive attitudes towards the seasonal influenza vaccine were reported. Good knowledge with caution was reported among parents regarding COVID-19 vaccination. The knowledge about HPV infection and vaccination: All of them reported low vaccination rates and willingness to vaccinate their children. The findings of our study highlight the significance of parental understanding of vaccinations and immunization. Health officials should make additional efforts to promote the benefits of vaccination while emphasizing the risks of non- or late pediatric immunization

Successful Urban Design Principles for the Redevelopment of the Historic Seafronts in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, along the North Red Sea , Case Study: Yanbu Al-Bahr’s Historic Seafront

This thesis highlights the role of urban planners in the revitalization of historic seafronts as creative and attractive places for people and a key factor in the regeneration of the urban economy in the historic seafront areas. The Saudi Arabia historic seafront areas along the North Red Sea have been neglected and are suffering because of slow development and changes to industrial uses. This thesis will focus on the urban design principles that make historic seafronts more attractive and successful, and will use a case study approach of several American waterfront cities such as Baltimore, Maryland; San Francisco, California; and Charleston, South Carolina. These American cities and the urban design principles applied for their successful revitalization were selected for analysis because of their similarities with the Yanbu Al-Bahr\u27s historic seafront. The results of this analysis will enable planners to apply the best of these urban waterfront design models to assist in the revitalization of historic seafronts along the North Red Sea in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)

A Multi-Analytical Investigation of the Hydrogel Phase

In this thesis are discussed aspects in which certain chemical and physical behaviour of relevance to abiogenesis, the origins of life, changes when compared between the aqueous phase and a mineral hydrogel phase. The significance of this work is based on observations that the cytosolic medium within all biological cells is better thought of as a hydrogel rather than aqueous. Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the fundamental principles of interest to this work, discusses hydrogels, their synthesis, properties and especially their potential role in abiogenesis. Also discussed are the concepts of amphiphilic self-assembly which is an important process examined in this thesis, and then concludes with some discussion of the analytical techniques used within the project. Chapter 2 describes the surface analysis of two different concentrations of silica hydrogels along with methods for isolating the silica matrix and surface analyses using electron microscopy (SEM) and associated techniques (BET, EDX). Chapter 3 outlines critical micelle concentration (CMC) measurements of the model amphiphile, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in both the aqueous and silica hydrogel phases in the presence of various salts. Included in this salt list are simulated seawater, NaCl, Na2CO3, Na2HPO4, Na2SiO3, Na2SO4 and MgCl2. Colorimetric methods were used employing a colorimetric reporter dye (pinacyanol chloride) by UV-Vis spectrophotometry. Chapter 4 outlines related CMC measurements of SDS-alcohol mixtures (C2-OH, C6-OH, C8-OH, C10-OH, C12-OH) again in both the aqueous and silica hydrogel phase using the same method. Chapter 5 Outlines the possibility of vesicle formation of SDS-Alcoholic composites in Silica Hydrogels. Chapter 6 examines the use of two different methods to explore the gelation process within silica hydrogels and any influence of inorganic and organic additives by UV-Vis light scattering, and turbidity meter measurements. Chapter 7 contains experimental details and sample preparation from Chapters 2 to Chapter 6. Chapter 8 offers a summary, conclusion, and future work perspective on the studies reported in this thesis

Awareness and Regulatory Measures in Caffeine Addiction: Medical Statistical Review

This study aimed at analyzing the degree of awareness and regulatory measures in the caffeine addiction within a medical statistical survey in Jordan, by attempting to answer the study two questions: What are the level of awareness and regulatory measures in caffeine addiction for positive psychological effects (alertness, attention and concentration)?, and: What are the level of awareness and regulatory measures in caffeine addiction for negative psychological effects (anxiety, depression and irritable)? The results of the study showed that there will be a statistically significant differences at the level of significance (α=0.05) of the awareness of caffeine addiction for both positive psychological effects (alertness, attention and concentration) and negative psychological effects (anxiety, depression and irritable) in Jordan. The researchers recommended to educate university students about the importance of controlling their caffeine intakes, and encourage university students to exploit the medical information provided by the medical studies about the risks of high doses of caffeine intakes