The Role of the Syllable Contact Law-Semisyllable (SCL-SEMI) in the Coda Clusters of Najdi Arabic and Other Languages

Final consonants in Arabic are semisyllables; that is, moraic unsyllabified segments that are attached to the prosodic word (Kiparsky, 2003). If this is the case, optional vowel epenthesis in Najdi Arabic final clusters cannot be attributed to violations of the Sonority Sequencing Principle, because sonority restrictions apply within syllables only. In a new perspective, this dissertation argues that the existence of vowel epenthesis in Najdi coda clusters that have rising sonority, and its absence in clusters that have a falling sonority, are instead due to violations of the Syllable Contact Law (SCL), where sonority must drop between syllable codas and the following onset. It specifically argues that SCL is further divided into two sub-constraints where it not only applies across two syllables (SCL-SYLL), but also across syllables and the following unsyllabified semisyllable (SCL-SEMI). The new constraint SCL-SEMI is shown to be operative in other languages and dialects of Arabic, as well, including German, Slovak, English and Jordanian Arabic. Optionality of vowel epenthesis when words are produced in isolation vs. followed by a vowel-initial suffix is accounted for by adopting the Reversible Ranking Strategy introduced by Lee (2001) where the two constraints DEP-IO and SCL-SEMI are reversed following this ranking: *CCC, MAX-IO, ONSET \u3e\u3e ALIGNR\u3e\u3e DEP-IO, SCL-SEMI \u3e\u3e SCL-SYLL, *CXCOD. In addition, a psycholinguistic study is conducted to test the perception and production of ten Najdi speakers to observe whether they epenthesized a vowel into nonsense words with final rising-sonority clusters. It also investigates the generalizability of the semisyllable consistutent, by asking whether Najdi listeners will assign semisyllable status to any unsyllabifiable consonant, even those occurring in nonsense words. Results show that most participants apply their preferred vowel epenthesis pattern to nonesense words, which reflects their implicit knowledge of this pattern. Results also show a harmony effect where inserted vowels copy stem vowels

The Role of Information Technology in Customer Satisfaction at the Commercial Banks in the State of Kuwait and the Kingdom of Bahrain

This research intended to identify the role of Information Technology IT in customer satisfaction at the commercial banks in the State of Kuwait and the Kingdom of Bahrain The study used the descriptive analytical approach and the questionnaire to measure the impact of IT on customer satisfaction After distributing the questionnaire data then were analyzed using SPSS software and we had the following results There is no statistically significant impact for the availability of devices on customer satisfaction at the commercial banks in the State of Kuwait and the Kingdom of Bahrain It was also revealed that there a statistically significant impact for software databases human resources and networks on customer satisfaction at the commercial banks in the State of Kuwait and the Kingdom of Bahrai

A field study to restricted poisonous wild plants grown in Al-Kharj region, Saudi Arabia

This study was aimed to define and collect different poisonous plant species that grow in Al-Kharj region, Saudi Arabia and are detrimental to human and livestock. A total of 16 plant species belonging to 12 families were recorded in the current study. These plants were met through surveys conducted by herbalists and smart citizens with skills and experience in the field of toxic plants in the region. For each species reported, botanical and vernacular names, families, and toxic principles are recognized. The most dominant and widespread toxic flowering plants reported in the studied area were the clan of Calotropis procera and Rhazya stricta. Other less widespread poisonous plants such as Citrullus colocynthis, Heliotropium bacciferum, Cassia italica, Alhagi maurorum, Capparis spinosa, Tribulus terrestris and Euphorbia helioscopia as well as Convolvulus arvensis, Zygophyllum coccineum were also observed

Click, Explore, and Learn: Graduate Students’ Experiences and Attitudes Toward Using E-Books for College-Level Courses

The main purpose of this qualitative research was to explore graduate students’: (a) interpretations of their experiences with the use of e-books for learning; (b) reasons that influence their preference to use e-books or printed books when they learn; (c) perceptions toward e-books impact on learning; (d) perceptions toward the influence of prior technological experience, knowledge, and confidence on opinions and decisionmaking associated with e-books; (e) interpretations of their experiences with the use of a given e-book; and (f) recommendations of changes to e-books to better supporting their learning. Participants were 20 graduate students at one of the midsize universities in the Western United States. Purposeful sampling was applied to the selection of participants along with the proposed selection criteria. The data collection procedure was comprised of three phases and three data collection methods (interviews, observations, and artifacts). Interview transcripts were the main data source in this research. Observational data and artifacts were considered as supplementary data. In this phenomenological research, the trustworthiness was examined through the consideration of three criteria (credibility, transferability, and dependability). A phenomenological data analysis was employed to analyze the data. A theoretical lens comprised of several supporting learning theories to the constructivism learning approach was utilized to analyze the results and provide insight on students’ learning experiences with e-books. Such learning theories include behaviorist learning theory (self-testing), cognitive load theory, information processing theory, social constructivism theory, dual coding theory, self-efficacy theory, and cognitive theory of multimedia learning. Five major themes and 16 sub themes emerged from participants\u27 interpretations of their experiences with the use of e-books for learning. The five major themes were: (a) all students valued e-books, but nearly all students still prefer printed books; (b) e-books can enhance learning, but can hinder learning as well; (c) the impact of prior technological experience, knowledge, and confidence on learning and decision-making associated with e-books; (d) students preferred to use the given e-book to the given printed book; and (e) change to e-books recommended by students to better support learning. Research implications were drawn from the research findings for educators, students, developers of e-book readers, e-book authors, e-book publishers, and technology production companies. Implications could contribute to stakeholders’ understanding towards the root causes for students’ preference and reluctance to the use of e-books and the changes they need to see in e-books in order to use them more when they aim to learn. Finally, recommendations for future research were provided

Consideration of persuasive technology on users acceptance of e-commerce: exploring perceived persuasiveness

Persuasive technologies, used within in the domain of interactive technology, are used broadly in social contexts to encourage customers towards positive behavior change. In the context of e-commerce, persuasive technologies have already been extensively applied in the area of marketing to enhancing system credibility, however the issue of ‘persuasiveness’, and its role on positive user acceptance of technology, has not been investigated in the technology acceptance literature. This paper reviews theories and models of users’ acceptance and use in relation with persuasive technology, and identifies their limitation when considering the impact of persuasive technology on users’ acceptance of technology; thus justifying a need to add consideration of ‘perceived persuasiveness’. We conclude by identifying variables associated with perceived persuasiveness, and suggest key research directions for future research

Graduate Students\u27 Experiences and Attitudes Toward Using E-Books for College-Level Courses

The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences and attitudes of graduate students toward the use of e-books for college-level courses. Seven students who pursued graduate studies at a midsize university in the Western United States volunteered to participate in semi-structured interviews. A theoretical lens comprised of three supporting learning theories (social constructivism, information processing, and self-efficacy theories) related to the constructivist learning approach was utilized to analyze the results and provide insight about students’ learning experiences with e-books. Students’ responses were categorized in four main areas: (a) they valued using e-books for social interactions and anytime/anywhere sharing and learning, (b) they indicated that e-books offer better information processing opportunities, (c) they expressed feelings of high self-efficacy and convenience, and (d) they indicated reasons of their negative perceptions and provided recommendations that could improve e-books to better support learning. Six out of seven students indicated their preference of using e-books over printed books. However, four out of these six students shifted their preference to printed books when asked if they preferred reading e-books for learning activities that required them to fully comprehend the information. Furthermore, this study provided discussion, limitations, and recommendations for future research

Context relevant persuasive interaction and design: consideration of human factors influencing B2C persuasive interaction

The revolutions of electronic and mobile commerce have opened up unique opportunities for global marketing and business to consumer (B2C) persuasive interaction; with the aim of influencing user behavior. The success or failure of such persuasive interaction is impacted by cultural, social, and personal dimensions. Accordingly, failure to consider such dimensions risks the user forming a negative attitude towards retailer’s websites or mobile applications, which subsequently threatens customer behavior. A better understanding of human factors influencing the way people perceive B2C persuasive interaction is needed. This paper is introduces the concept of a context relevant persuasive interaction and proposes a guideline for designing relevant B2C persuasive interaction

Review of Crowdfunding Regulations across Countries: A Systematic Review Study

In recent years, the financial industry is seeing rapid implementation of an increasing number of new technologies. In crowdfunding campaigns, borrowers, potential investors, and platform providers may face some issues in terms of information disclosures, selecting an appropriate threshold, and platform insolvency. However, there is insufficient research to provide a cohesive view of the regulatory framework for crowdfunding platforms. This research offers comparative and comprehensive insights through a systematic literature review (SLR) in analyzing the existing regulatory environment across countries. The results suggest the fundamental regulatory framework in supporting startups, early-stage companies, innovation and entrepreneurs, and balancing investor protections and support for businesses seeking to raise funds, particularly in protecting client’s fund, crowdfunding advertising law, fundraising and investment limit, authorization and disclosure obligations. This study contributes to providing a comprehensive understanding of crowdfunding regulatory frameworks and informing governments or policymakers in the future development or reform of crowdfunding regulation frameworks

“A Nondescript Monster”: Fanny Fern in Transatlantic Print Culture

Fanny Fern (real name Sara Payson Willis Parton) was one of the most profitable American columnists and novelists of the mid-nineteenth century. Fern sustained her celebrity status largely through unauthorised reprints of her articles in American and British papers. Consequently, her public image was for the most part constructed through those reprinted articles, which were usually framed by speculations about her private life. This article examines the implications and limitations of Fern’s efforts to stabilise the dissemination of her public image in periodicals by using the relatively more stable form of the book. As a celebrity, she had limited control over the way she was publicly represented. As a woman in the public sphere, she was particularly vulnerable to slander and libel. The circulation of a spurious biography entitled The Life and Beauties of Fanny Fern (1855), alongside her sanctioned autobiographical novel Ruth Hall, profited from her literary brand while simultaneously undermining it. Examining how these competing narratives about Fern’s private life – one fictionalised, one unauthorised – shaped her literary reputation at home and in England, this paper argues that textual representations as well as material market choices, including book bindings and advertising techniques, shaped authorship in the increasingly commercialised transatlantic literary market of the mid-century in ways that both benefited and imperilled the female writer

Memory Efficient Scheduling for Multicore Real-time Systems

Modern real-time systems are becoming increasingly complex and requiring significant computational power to meet their demands. Since the increase in uniprocessor speed has slowed down in the last decade, multicore processors are now the preferred way to supply the increased performance demand of real-time systems. A significant amount of work in the real-time community has focused on scheduling solutions for multicore processors for both sequential and parallel real-time tasks. Even though such solutions are able to provide strict timing guarantees on the overall response time of real-time tasks, they rely on the assumption that the worst-case execution time (WCET) of each individual task is known. However, physical shared resources such as main memory and I/O are heavily employed in multicore processors. These resources are limited and therefore subject to contention. In fact, the execution time of one task when run in parallel with other tasks is significantly larger than the execution time of the same task when run in isolation. In addition, the presence of shared resources increases the timing unpredictability due to the conflicts generated by multiple cores. As a result, the adoption of multicore processors for real-time systems is dependent upon solving such sources of unpredictability. In this dissertation, we investigate memory bus contention. In particular, two main problems are associated with memory contention: (1) unpredictable behavior and (2) hindrance of performance. We show how to mitigate these two problems through scheduling. Scheduling is an attractive tool that can be easily integrated into the system without the need for hardware modifications. We adopt an execution model that exposes memory as a resource to the scheduling algorithm. Thus, the theory of real-time multiprocessor scheduling, that has seen significant advances in recent years, can be utilized to schedule both processor cores and memory. Since the real-time workload on multicore processors can be modeled as sequential or parallel tasks, we also study parallel task scheduling by taking memory time into account