Oman's Ability to Attract FDI: Dunning Instrument Survey Analysis

The purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which Oman is capable of attracting more of the foreign direct investment (FDI) through dunning model instruments. The results of the analysis are determined using responses provided by the foreign companies concerning the features of Oman. Data used in the analysis were collected from 30 different foreign companies operating in Dhofar region of Oman using questionnaires. ANOVA test, Chi-square tests and Friedman's mean ranks were carried out to test the homogeneity and magnitude of the responses given by the respective companies. the findings of Effect size analysis indicate that Oman’s system structure, Policy framework, provision of facilities and ease of access are strongly contributing in attracting FDI. However, Oman needs to focus on the improvement of business friendly environment and compassionate policy formation in favor of investors

Catalyst Role of University Green Entrepreneurial Support Promoting Green Entrepreneurial Inclinations Among Youth: Empirical Evidence from Oman

Purpose: The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the green entrepreneurial inclination of youth and sustainable development in Sultanate of Oman. It has a secondary objective of stimulating more research in areas identified as still being under‐explored.   Theoretical framework: The framework is developed covering the personality factors, support factors and inclination towards green entrepreneurship furthermore the moderating role of institutional support has been inculcated.   Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper is discursive using quantitative research methodology, based on analysis and synthesis of green entrepreneurial literature the framework was developed. The data has been collected from 384 students studying in Dhofar University and University and Technology and Applied Sciences, Salalah. Structural Equation modelling has been conducted to test the model.   Findings: Despite a broad spectrum of disciplines that investigate green entrepreneurial inclination and despite this special issue in the area of entrepreneurship, there are still areas open for research into green entrepreneurial intentions. The paper develops a model to explain green entrepreneurial inclination.   Research limitations/Implications: As a conceptual paper, the study is limited to literature and prior empirical research. It offers the benefit of new research directions for researchers/ universities in understanding and promoting the culture of green entrepreneurship among university students. The paper provides researchers with a proposed and tested integrated model of green entrepreneurial inclination.   Originality/Value: The paper links a significant body of literature within a unifying theoretical framework and identifies under‐researched areas of green entrepreneurial inclination of youth in an entrepreneurship context

Oman's Ability to Attract FDI: Dunning Instrument Survey Analysis

he purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which Oman is capable of attracting more of the foreign direct investment (FDI) through dunning model instruments. The results of the analysis are determined using responses provided by the foreign companies concerning the features of Oman. Data used in the analysis were collected from 30 different foreign companies operating in Dhofar region of Oman using questionnaires. ANOVA test, Chi-square tests and Friedman's mean ranks were carried out to test the homogeneity and magnitude of the responses given by the respective companies. the findings of Effect size analysis indicate that Oman’s system structure, Policy framework, provision of facilities and ease of access are strongly contributing in attracting FDI. However, Oman needs to focus on the improvement of business friendly environment and compassionate policy formation in favor of investors

COVID-19 Challenges and Human Resource Management in Organized Retail Operations

The study emphasizes on identifying and overcoming Covid-19 challenges, faced by human resource management (HRM) while managing personnel in organized retail stores. Data for this study were drawn from a review of secondary sources on practical insights about Covid-19 challenges, suggesting tangible solutions to solve them, which should be addressed at the earliest to ensure successful retail operations avoiding unexpected chaos created by the Covid-19 pandemic

An exploration of IQ, EQ, spiritual quotient (SQ) elements in the human reengineering program (HRP) practices: A study on the drug rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia

This study is entitled An Exploration of IQ, EQ and Spiritual Quotient (SQ) Elements in the Human Re-Engineering Program (HRP) Practices: A Study on the Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia. This study involved four drug rehabilitation centres in Northern Malaysia which are Perak, Penang, Kedah and Perlis. However, the rehabilitation centres involved in this study came from three different states only which are Cure and Care rehabilitation centre (CCRC) Kampung Selamat, Penang, Klinik Cure & Care 1 Malaysia, Bukit Mertajam, Penang, Cure & Care rehabilitation centre (CCRC) Batu Kurau, Perak and Cure & Care Rehabilitation Centre (CCRC) Bukit Chabang, Perlis. This study using Qualitative Method and Exploratory Research. Therefore, to explore the phenomenon an in-depth interview has been conducted with one officer of the CCRC and at least 3 patients of the CCRC. In total, 17 respondents had been interviewed for this research. All the respondents are male. Results of the study showed that approximately only 30% of the patients recover. However, this figure is still doubtful due to no exact statistic revealed. The reasons why they are failed to sustain themselves after being freed from the CCRC due to peer’s factor (40%), low of self-confidence (30%) and weak of religious practice (30%). Family support is one of the main factors contributed to their recovering process as 90% of the respondents admitted that. Majority of the patients admitted that peers’ factor is the main reason they involved with the drug abuse (50%) besides self-exploration (30%) and other factors (20%). In order to rebuild the self-confidence, rehabilitation centre used multi programs such as religious activity, peer’s guidance or group maker (Pembimbing Rakan Sebaya (PRS), and therapy community. This study also revealed that 3 out of 4 rehabilitation centres used more than 50% of SQ program in their healing process, 20-25% on EQ activities and IQ activities. Amongst favourite SQ activities are Iqra’ class, which is learning how to read the Quran, and Halaqah is where they will discuss about religion and do some self-reflection. Family support and religious commitment and practices are the main contributor to patient’s recovery survival after they are freed. As a conclusion, healing process in the rehabilitation centre highly influenced with Spiritual Quotient programs besides others. This shows that internal strength gained via religious commitment and attachment besides continuous practices will be a significant factor of the recovering.The authors acknowledge the support of Bridging grant with account no: 304 PMGT 6316039 RCMO University Sains Malaysia as well as The Sumitomo Foundation, Japan in conducting this research

IoT-based Smart Traffic Cone System to Avoid Traffic Congestion and Improve Road Safety

Chain-reaction automobile accidents are a common occurrence, especially on freeways. Several reasons can lead to these collisions, such as speed, failing to see stop signs for oncoming traffic, and unforeseen road conditions. The Internet of Things (IoT)-Based Smart Traffic Cone System is created as a solution to these problems. It makes use of a variety of sensors and IoT technologies that are elegantly incorporated into the traffic cone's design. It is a solar-powered smart portable device in the shape of a traffic cone. Particularly on two-way roads, the traffic cones are positioned strategically in the median of the road. In addition, a traffic display panel is placed near the signal to make necessary adjustments before encountering traffic jams. A Bluetooth system is used to alert the drivers inside their vehicles about the road conditions. This initiative is aimed at the VISION 2040 of Oman, which emphasizes the creation of smart and sustainable cities with advanced IT infrastructure. The smart traffic cone represents an innovative solution developed after long research and with the recommendations and guidance of the Royal Oman Police (RoP) for the advancement of smart city development. Through continued research and development efforts, the functional prototype of the Traffic cone system has been successfully developed

An exploration of IQ, EQ, spiritual quotient (SQ) elements in the human reengineering program (HRP) practices: A study on the drug rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia

This study is entitled An Exploration of IQ, EQ and Spiritual Quotient (SQ) Elements in the Human Re-Engineering Program (HRP) Practices: A Study on the Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Malaysia. This study involved four drug rehabilitation centres in Northern Malaysia which are Perak, Penang, Kedah and Perlis. However, the rehabilitation centres involved in this study came from three different states only which are Cure and Care rehabilitation centre (CCRC) Kampung Selamat, Penang, Klinik Cure & Care 1 Malaysia, Bukit Mertajam, Penang, Cure & Care rehabilitation centre (CCRC) Batu Kurau, Perak and Cure & Care Rehabilitation Centre (CCRC) Bukit Chabang, Perlis. This study using Qualitative Method and Exploratory Research. Therefore, to explore the phenomenon an in-depth interview has been conducted with one officer of the CCRC and at least 3 patients of the CCRC. In total, 17 respondents had been interviewed for this research. All the respondents are male. Results of the study showed that approximately only 30% of the patients recover. However, this figure is still doubtful due to no exact statistic revealed. The reasons why they are failed to sustain themselves after being freed from the CCRC due to peer’s factor (40%), low of self-confidence (30%) and weak of religious practice (30%). Family support is one of the main factors contributed to their recovering process as 90% of the respondents admitted that. Majority of the patients admitted that peers’ factor is the main reason they involved with the drug abuse (50%) besides self-exploration (30%) and other factors (20%). In order to rebuild the self-confidence, rehabilitation centre used multi programs such as religious activity, peer’s guidance or group maker (Pembimbing Rakan Sebaya (PRS), and therapy community. This study also revealed that 3 out of 4 rehabilitation centres used more than 50% of SQ program in their healing process, 20-25% on EQ activities and IQ activities. Amongst favourite SQ activities are Iqra’ class, which is learning how to read the Quran, and Halaqah is where they will discuss about religion and do some self-reflection. Family support and religious commitment and practices are the main contributor to patient’s recovery survival after they are freed. As a conclusion, healing process in the rehabilitation centre highly influenced with Spiritual Quotient programs besides others. This shows that internal strength gained via religious commitment and attachment besides continuous practices will be a significant factor of the recovering

Diversity, distribution and conservation of the terrestrial reptiles of Oman (Sauropsida, Squamata)

All authors: Salvador Carranza , Meritxell Xipell, Pedro Tarroso, Andrew Gardner, Edwin Nicholas Arnold, Michael D. Robinson, Marc Simó-Riudalbas, Raquel Vasconcelos, Philip de Pous, Fèlix Amat, Jiří Šmíd, Roberto Sindaco, Margarita Metallinou †, Johannes Els, Juan Manuel Pleguezuelos, Luis Machado, David Donaire, Gabriel Martínez, Joan Garcia-Porta, Tomáš Mazuch, Thomas Wilms, Jürgen Gebhart, Javier Aznar, Javier Gallego, Bernd-Michael Zwanzig, Daniel Fernández-Guiberteau, Theodore Papenfuss, Saleh Al Saadi, Ali Alghafri, Sultan Khalifa, Hamed Al Farqani, Salim Bait Bilal, Iman Sulaiman Alazri, Aziza Saud Al Adhoobi, Zeyana Salim Al Omairi, Mohammed Al Shariani, Ali Al Kiyumi, Thuraya Al Sariri, Ahmed Said Al Shukaili, Suleiman Nasser Al Akhzami.In the present work, we use an exceptional database including 5,359 records of 101 species of Oman’s terrestrial reptiles together with spatial tools to infer the spatial patterns of species richness and endemicity, to infer the habitat preference of each species and to better define conservation priorities, with especial focus on the effectiveness of the protected areas in preserving this unique arid fauna. Our results indicate that the sampling effort is not only remarkable from a taxonomic point of view, with multiple observations for most species, but also for the spatial coverage achieved. The observations are distributed almost continuously across the two-dimensional climatic space of Oman defined by the mean annual temperature and the total annual precipitation and across the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the multivariate climatic space and are well represented within 17 out of the 20 climatic clusters grouping 10% of the explained climatic variance defined by PC1 and PC2. Species richness is highest in the Hajar and Dhofar Mountains, two of the most biodiverse areas of the Arabian Peninsula, and endemic species richness is greatest in the Jebel Akhdar, the highest part of the Hajar Mountains. Oman’s 22 protected areas cover only 3.91% of the country, including within their limits 63.37% of terrestrial reptiles and 50% of all endemics. Our analyses show that large areas of the climatic space of Oman lie outside protected areas and that seven of the 20 climatic clusters are not protected at all. The results of the gap analysis indicate that most of the species are below the conservation target of 17% or even the less restrictive 12% of their total area within a protected area in order to be considered adequately protected. Therefore, an evaluation of the coverage of the current network of protected areas and the identification of priority protected areas for reptiles using reserve design algorithms are urgently needed. Our study also shows that more than half of the species are still pending of a definitive evaluation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).This work was funded by grants CGL2012-36970, CGL2015-70390-P from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (cofunded by FEDER) to SC, the project Field study for the conservation of reptiles in Oman, Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, Oman (Ref: 22412027) to SC and grant 2014-SGR-1532 from the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya to SC. MSR is funded by a FPI grant from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (BES-2013-064248); RV, PT and LM were funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through post-doc grants (SFRH/BPD/79913/2011) to RV, (SFRH/BPD/93473/2013) to PT and PhD grant (SFRH/BD/89820/2012) to LM, financed by Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH) – Quadro de Referência Estrategico Nacional (QREN) from the European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministerio da Educação e Ciência

Intelligent mobile ad hoc network management system

This thesis was submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel University London.Currently wireless networks have grown significantly and contributed to several fields of technology especially communication. One of the imperative features of wireless networks is providing access to information without considering the geographical and the topological attributes of a user. One of the most popular wireless network technologies is mobile Ad Hoc network. In order to find an appropriate route between two connected nodes, several routing protocols have been suggested and created. Each routing protocol performs best under specific network conditions, such as under relatively low mobility level and highly dense network size. The main attribute to routing protocol performance degradation is connected to changes of the network context and conditions. Up to date, there is no routing protocol that can maintain its performance at high level under all possible context conditions. In this thesis, the introduction of a management system utilizing artificial intelligence and optimisation techniques to be responsible for predicting MANET routing protocol performance behaviour and selecting the best suited one to adapted to the changes in the network conditions to solve the network performance degradation problem. MANET is modelled with the support of Artificial Intelligent (AI) techniques to help in a better understanding of the network performance under different context scenarios, the use of various packet types, and operating with different routing protocols. Thus the main addition made by this research is the use of different techniques to model our mobile Ad Hoc networks in terms of their behaviour that can be utilised for prediction purposes. An additional contribution is utilisation and comparison of different optimisation techniques based on MANET performance models that can be part of the system for choosing the best of the selected five routing protocols based on the network. The determined parameters for the context that affect the network were average mobility, number of nodes, and packet types. I_MMS manages the selection of a routing mechanism to maintain a stable performance by the network. The selected routing mechanism resulted by a minimum value in delay rate, RA, load, and higher throughpu