SOCIOCULTURAL AND ACADEMIC ACCULTURATION CHALLENGES ENCOUNTERED BY SAUDI FEMALE STUDENTS IN THE UNITED STATES

Coming from a completely different culture, Saudi female students encounter a number of challenges adapting to the American culture. These acculturation challenges may affect their academic, social, and life experiences in the United States. The purpose of this study was to explore the acculturation challenges encountered by Saudi female students in the United States and their strategies to cope with their challenges. The study also aimed to investigate the roles of participants demographic variables and the historical changes in Saudi Arabia on their experiences in the United States. To achieve these objectives, a mixed methods research was adopted implementing an online survey and semi-structured interviews. Data were collected from 100 Saudi female students living and studying in different parts of the United States.Results showed that social challenges were the most difficult acculturation challenge encountered by Saudi female students in the United States, followed by cultural challenges and familial obligations. Discrimination challenges, on the other hand, appeared to be the least challenging issue facing Saudi female students in the United States. Coping with their different challenges, Saudi female students adopted a variety of strategies that helped them adjust to their new environment. Exploring the role of Saudi female students demographic variables on their acculturation challenges in the United States, participants demographic variables of age, living in big city or small town, previous overseas experiences, educational level, English skills self-rating, and marital status seemed to significantly influence Saudi female students experiences in the United States. However, there was no significant relationship between participants acculturation challenges and their regions of origins in Saudi Arabia, regions of residence in the United States, length of residence in the United States, and children. For the effect of the recent changes in Saudi Arabia on Saudi female students experiences in the United States and the way they perceive themselves, a number of positive aspects and effects were highlighted by the participants such as the empowerment of Saudi women, gaining more freedom, receiving equal job opportunities, and becoming stronger, more confident, more independent, and more excited to work hard and go back to Saudi Arabia

A Comparison of Text-Driven and Coursebook Materials: Investigating their Potential Learning Effects on EFL Learners’ Perceptions and Communicative Performance Using Multiple Research Methods

This study compared the potential effects of Text-Driven (TD) and Coursebook (CB) materials on learners' perceptions and interactions in EFL classrooms. It also explored which teaching materials are more likely to facilitate learners’ communicative competence through theoretical and empirical evaluations. 82 EFL female students at A2 (CEFR) level were selected in this study from the English Language Institute (ELI) at the University of Jeddah in KSA and divided into two comparable intact classes taught by the researcher. The first group was taught the developed Text-Driven materials, whereas the second group was taught the Coursebook materials. The study adopted a multiple-method research design. Data were collected through six methods: questionnaires, individual interviews, classroom interaction analysis, teachers’ observations, virtual forums, and pre-post communicative tests. The data revealed that while both TD and CB materials were viewed positively by the participants, Text-Driven showed a number of advantages over coursebook materials in developing learners’ engagement and classroom interactions. The findings demonstrated that the frequencies of learners' turns using L1 or L2 are higher in the TD group than in CB and that the observed interactional patterns differ considerably among the groups. The TD interactional patterns involved more open than closed responses, and their interaction was meaningful, personally engaging, and focused on both content and forms compared to their counterpart. Similarly, the two ELI instructors who observed the researcher’s TD and CB video-recoded classes commented that TD materials seemed more effective than the CB in developing classroom interaction, resulting in meaningful interactional patterns among TD learners. The pre-post communicative test results supported the previous data and showed that the TD materials are more likely to accelerate the learners’ overall English “communicative competence” than the CB materials. The theoretical content analysis of the coursebook unit provided further evidence that most of the tasks are controlled and aimed at practising language points and thus may not facilitate L2 communicative competence. The findings of this study would benefit TESOL/Applied linguistics stakeholders as a flexible communicative teaching model was proposed. It reflects the findings of language learning studies that explore how second language competence can be developed. Furthermore, these iii results may assist the ELI and other contexts in considering the significance of L2 materials development and its potential impact on learners’ engagement and communicative performance. In light of these findings, several recommendations are proposed

The Use of Recurrent Nets for the Prediction of e-Commerce Sales

The increase in e-commerce sales and profits has been a source of much anxiety over the years. Due to the advances in Internet technology, more and more people choose to shop online. Online retailers can improve customer satisfaction using sentiment analysis in comments and reviews to gain higher profits. This study used Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) to predict future sales from previous using the Kaggle dataset. A Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (BLTSM) RNN was employed by tuning various hyperparameters to improve accuracy. The results showed that this BLTSM model of the RNN was quite accurate at predicting future sales performance

A Nonlinear Autoregressive Exogenous (NARX) Neural Network Model for the Prediction of Timestamp Influence on Bitcoin Value

The transaction and market of bitcoin is volatile, meaning it's uncertain because it changes frequently. There have been a number of research studies that have presented bitcoin price prediction models, but none of them have looked at the controlling variables linked with bitcoin transaction timestamps. It might be that price is not the only key criteria influencing bitcoin transactions, or the available model for bitcoin price prediction is yet to consider timestamp as a determining factor in its transaction. A better and more accurate model would be required to predict how the Timestamp influences changes of bitcoin transactions. That is why this current study utilized a Nonlinear Autoregressive Exogenous (NARX) Neural Network Model for the prediction of timestamp influence on Bitcoin value. Bitcoin historical datasets which are converted to a nonlinear regression into a "well-formulated" statistical problem in the manner of a ridge regression are used. Simulation analysis indicates that bitcoin digital currency's performance variation is highly influenced by its transaction timestamp with the prediction accuracy of 96%. The contributions of this research lies with the fact that specific Bitcoin transaction events repeat themselves over and over again, meaning that the Open-Price, High-Price, Low-Price, and Close-Price of Bitcoin price over timestamp developed a pattern that was predicted by NARX with less That means those involved in the transaction of bitcoin at the wrong timestamp will certainly face the uncertainty negative effect of the bitcoin market

Biodegradable elastic nanofibrous platforms with integrated flexible heaters for on-demand drug delivery

Delivery of drugs with controlled temporal profiles is essential for wound treatment and regenerative medicine applications. For example, bacterial infection is a key challenge in the treatment of chronic and deep wounds. Current treatment strategies are based on systemic administration of high doses of antibiotics, which result in side effects and drug resistance. On-demand delivery of drugs with controlled temporal profile is highly desirable. Here, we have developed thermally controllable, antibiotic-releasing nanofibrous sheets. Poly(glycerol sebacate)- poly(caprolactone) (PGS-PCL) blends were electrospun to form elastic polymeric sheets with fiber diameters ranging from 350 to 1100 nm and substrates with a tensile modulus of approximately 4-8 MPa. A bioresorbable metallic heater was patterned directly on the nanofibrous substrate for applying thermal stimulation to release antibiotics on-demand. In vitro studies confirmed the platform’s biocompatibility and biodegradability. The released antibiotics were potent against tested bacterial strains. These results may pave the path toward developing electronically controllable wound dressings that can deliver drugs with desired temporal patterns

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990-2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

SummaryBackground The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 provides an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence for risk factor exposure and the attributable burden of disease. By providing national and subnational assessments spanning the past 25 years, this study can inform debates on the importance of addressing risks in context. Methods We used the comparative risk assessment framework developed for previous iterations of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate attributable deaths, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and trends in exposure by age group, sex, year, and geography for 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks from 1990 to 2015. This study included 388 risk-outcome pairs that met World Cancer Research Fund-defined criteria for convincing or probable evidence. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from randomised controlled trials, cohorts, pooled cohorts, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. We developed a metric that allows comparisons of exposure across risk factors—the summary exposure value. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk level, we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We decomposed trends in attributable burden into contributions from population growth, population age structure, risk exposure, and risk-deleted cause-specific DALY rates. We characterised risk exposure in relation to a Socio-demographic Index (SDI). Findings Between 1990 and 2015, global exposure to unsafe sanitation, household air pollution, childhood underweight, childhood stunting, and smoking each decreased by more than 25%. Global exposure for several occupational risks, high body-mass index (BMI), and drug use increased by more than 25% over the same period. All risks jointly evaluated in 2015 accounted for 57·8% (95% CI 56·6–58·8) of global deaths and 41·2% (39·8–42·8) of DALYs. In 2015, the ten largest contributors to global DALYs among Level 3 risks were high systolic blood pressure (211·8 million [192·7 million to 231·1 million] global DALYs), smoking (148·6 million [134·2 million to 163·1 million]), high fasting plasma glucose (143·1 million [125·1 million to 163·5 million]), high BMI (120·1 million [83·8 million to 158·4 million]), childhood undernutrition (113·3 million [103·9 million to 123·4 million]), ambient particulate matter (103·1 million [90·8 million to 115·1 million]), high total cholesterol (88·7 million [74·6 million to 105·7 million]), household air pollution (85·6 million [66·7 million to 106·1 million]), alcohol use (85·0 million [77·2 million to 93·0 million]), and diets high in sodium (83·0 million [49·3 million to 127·5 million]). From 1990 to 2015, attributable DALYs declined for micronutrient deficiencies, childhood undernutrition, unsafe sanitation and water, and household air pollution; reductions in risk-deleted DALY rates rather than reductions in exposure drove these declines. Rising exposure contributed to notable increases in attributable DALYs from high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, occupational carcinogens, and drug use. Environmental risks and childhood undernutrition declined steadily with SDI; low physical activity, high BMI, and high fasting plasma glucose increased with SDI. In 119 countries, metabolic risks, such as high BMI and fasting plasma glucose, contributed the most attributable DALYs in 2015. Regionally, smoking still ranked among the leading five risk factors for attributable DALYs in 109 countries; childhood underweight and unsafe sex remained primary drivers of early death and disability in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Interpretation Declines in some key environmental risks have contributed to declines in critical infectious diseases. Some risks appear to be invariant to SDI. Increasing risks, including high BMI, high fasting plasma glucose, drug use, and some occupational exposures, contribute to rising burden from some conditions, but also provide opportunities for intervention. Some highly preventable risks, such as smoking, remain major causes of attributable DALYs, even as exposure is declining. Public policy makers need to pay attention to the risks that are increasingly major contributors to global burden. Funding Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Health in times of uncertainty in the eastern Mediterranean region, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

Background: The eastern Mediterranean region is comprised of 22 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Since our Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 (GBD 2010), the region has faced unrest as a result of revolutions, wars, and the so-called Arab uprisings. The objective of this study was to present the burden of diseases, injuries, and risk factors in the eastern Mediterranean region as of 2013. Methods: GBD 2013 includes an annual assessment covering 188 countries from 1990 to 2013. The study covers 306 diseases and injuries, 1233 sequelae, and 79 risk factors. Our GBD 2013 analyses included the addition of new data through updated systematic reviews and through the contribution of unpublished data sources from collaborators, an updated version of modelling software, and several improvements in our methods. In this systematic analysis, we use data from GBD 2013 to analyse the burden of disease and injuries in the eastern Mediterranean region specifically. Findings: The leading cause of death in the region in 2013 was ischaemic heart disease (90·3 deaths per 100 000 people), which increased by 17·2% since 1990. However, diarrhoeal diseases were the leading cause of death in Somalia (186·7 deaths per 100 000 people) in 2013, which decreased by 26·9% since 1990. The leading cause of disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) was ischaemic heart disease for males and lower respiratory infection for females. High blood pressure was the leading risk factor for DALYs in 2013, with an increase of 83·3% since 1990. Risk factors for DALYs varied by country. In low-income countries, childhood wasting was the leading cause of DALYs in Afghanistan, Somalia, and Yemen, whereas unsafe sex was the leading cause in Djibouti. Non-communicable risk factors were the leading cause of DALYs in high-income and middle-income countries in the region. DALY risk factors varied by age, with child and maternal malnutrition affecting the younger age groups (aged 28 days to 4 years), whereas high bodyweight and systolic blood pressure affected older people (aged 60–80 years). The proportion of DALYs attributed to high body-mass index increased from 3·7% to 7·5% between 1990 and 2013. Burden of mental health problems and drug use increased. Most increases in DALYs, especially from non-communicable diseases, were due to population growth. The crises in Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria have resulted in a reduction in life expectancy; life expectancy in Syria would have been 5 years higher than that recorded for females and 6 years higher for males had the crisis not occurred. Interpretation: Our study shows that the eastern Mediterranean region is going through a crucial health phase. The Arab uprisings and the wars that followed, coupled with ageing and population growth, will have a major impact on the region's health and resources. The region has historically seen improvements in life expectancy and other health indicators, even under stress. However, the current situation will cause deteriorating health conditions for many countries and for many years and will have an impact on the region and the rest of the world. Based on our findings, we call for increased investment in health in the region in addition to reducing the conflicts

Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Background The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 provides an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence for risk factor exposure and the attributable burden of disease. By providing national and subnational assessments spanning the past 25 years, this study can inform debates on the importance of addressing risks in context. Methods We used the comparative risk assessment framework developed for previous iterations of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate attributable deaths, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and trends in exposure by age group, sex, year, and geography for 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks from 1990 to 2015. This study included 388 risk-outcome pairs that met World Cancer Research Fund-defi ned criteria for convincing or probable evidence. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from randomised controlled trials, cohorts, pooled cohorts, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. We developed a metric that allows comparisons of exposure across risk factors—the summary exposure value. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk level, we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We decomposed trends in attributable burden into contributions from population growth, population age structure, risk exposure, and risk-deleted cause-specifi c DALY rates. We characterised risk exposure in relation to a Socio-demographic Index (SDI).Background The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study 2015 provides an up-to-date synthesis of the evidence for risk factor exposure and the attributable burden of disease. By providing national and subnational assessments spanning the past 25 years, this study can inform debates on the importance of addressing risks in context. Methods We used the comparative risk assessment framework developed for previous iterations of the Global Burden of Disease Study to estimate attributable deaths, disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and trends in exposure by age group, sex, year, and geography for 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks from 1990 to 2015. This study included 388 risk-outcome pairs that met World Cancer Research Fund-defi ned criteria for convincing or probable evidence. We extracted relative risk and exposure estimates from randomised controlled trials, cohorts, pooled cohorts, household surveys, census data, satellite data, and other sources. We used statistical models to pool data, adjust for bias, and incorporate covariates. We developed a metric that allows comparisons of exposure across risk factors—the summary exposure value. Using the counterfactual scenario of theoretical minimum risk level, we estimated the portion of deaths and DALYs that could be attributed to a given risk. We decomposed trends in attributable burden into contributions from population growth, population age structure, risk exposure, and risk-deleted cause-specifi c DALY rates. We characterised risk exposure in relation to a Socio-demographic Index (SDI)

Global, regional, and national disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for 315 diseases and injuries and healthy life expectancy (HALE), 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

BACKGROUND: Healthy life expectancy (HALE) and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) provide summary measures of health across geographies and time that can inform assessments of epidemiological p ..

Measuring the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in 188 countries: a baseline analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

BACKGROUND: In September, 2015, the UN General Assembly established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs specify 17 universal goals, 169 targets, and 230 indicators leading up to 2030 ..