Organic matter in Holocene paleosols at the Farwell site

In this work, modern and buried paleosols were sampled at the Farwell locality along the South Fork of the Big Nemaha River, southeastern Nebraska, USA. Site 1 (65-1) and site 2 (65-2) developed in Holocene alluvial deposits and are developed on a low terrace in sediments of the Late Gunder Member of the Deforest Formation. The paleosols are fine-grained and contain abundant flecks of charcoal. Soils at the third site (64-1) formed in Wisconsinan-age Peoria Loess that overlies alluvium of the Severance Formation. All these alluvial sites are dominantly fine-grained and oxidized, with reduced sections containing detrital organic matter near river level. Field macrophological investigations indicated that soil at site 1 has A and B horizonation, including a thick dark A and a blocky or prismatic structured B horizon. At site 2, multiple dark buried soils occurred with subangular blocky structure and charcoal fragments. At site 3, the buried soil had dark colors and subangular blocky structure. The organic carbon concentration was relatively high in the surface horizons of the two modern soils (site 1, site 3), as well as in the buried surfaces horizon of the paleosols (site 2). Organic C ranged from 3.9 to 22.7 g/kg, 3.2 to 6.5 g/kg, and from 17.5 to 10.07 g/kg in the whole soil profiles at site 1, 2, and 3 respectively. The stable carbon isotope data for the three sites indicated that mixed communities of C3 and C4 plants were predominant during the mid-Holocene period, suggesting that the climate fluctuated between colder and wetter and between warmer and drier during that period of Holocene at Farwell site. Amino-acid N concentrations decreased with the depth in both modern and buried paleosols. Subtle increases in AA-N in the A horizons of the buried paleosols may preserve a record of biological activity in those horizons when they were near the land surface. Treatment of soil samples with HF released amino acids that were trapped between interlamellar surfaces of clay minerals. It is inferred that interaction with layer silicates has a role in stabilizing amino acids against degradation

The Use of University Research in Planning Decision Making in Jordanian Municipalities

• the first Jordanian study to examine the use of academic research for planning decision making • presents evidence of how Jordanian municipal laws and practices act as barriers to engagement with academic researchers • Statistical analysis of how key issues (centralization, finance, self-efficacy, administrative culture) affect the use of research in decision making processes. • Makes recommendations on how many of the problems identified can be mitigate

Financing Housing Transformation in Informal Settlements in Jordan

This paper aims to examine how housing transformation is financed in informal settlements in Jordan. A quantitative method was seen as an appropriate approach to deal with the research objectives. The Baqa'a Palestinian refugee camp was targeted as the biggest informal settlement in terms of the number of population and housing units. Findings reveal that construction and housing transformation took place over three separate periods of time and was influenced both by increasing family size over time and improvement in a family's income. Irregular financing played a major role in increasing housing transformation and expansion of informal settlements. Regression analysis results demonstrate that irregular financing has a significant impact on housing transformation. As a result, this paper confirms that the process of construction and housing transformation is incremental

Social Media Marketing and Relationship Quality: Zain Jordan customers’ perspective

The aim of this study is to examine whether social media marketing can affect relationship quality from customers perspective. In a review of the literature, it is clear that to date the conceptual foundations of social media marketing and its affect on relationship quality has not yet been fully developed. In response, this study will try to provide a deeper academic understanding by extending the knowledge of both social media and relationship quality theory and practice. Thus, the proposed model contributes to existing literature by empirically investigating the association between its derived components — social media use, trust, satisfaction, commitment and relationship quality— applied to the Zain customers in Jordan. Importantly, this also provides managers in services dealing with young generation, relevant information and recommendations to assist in improving their social-media marketing programs. Data was collected by self administered questionnaire from random samples drawn from the population of Zain customers using Facebook. The constructs were developed by using measurement scales adopted from prior studies. The instrument in this study was evaluated for reliability and validity. Data were analyzed using SPSS. The results in this study indicate that social media have influence on customer’s relationship quality. The main recommendations of the study is maintaining the relationship with the customers permanently by enhancing three factors: trust, satisfaction and commitment, this study has several limitations and also indicates directions for further research. Keywords: Relationship Quality Social Media, Facebook, Jorda

Online Video Reviews Helpfulness: Exploratory Study

Online reviews assist consumers in making an informed purchase decision and they became a trusted source for product information. This study aims to investigate online video reviews on YouTube to understand what are the most commonly reviewed products and what are the factors of YouTube video reviews which contribute to review helpfulness. We use qualitative and quantitative techniques as research methodologies. The results show that major categories reviewed on YouTube are video games, movies, and technology. Exploratory factor analysis revealed four important factors that may determine online video review helpfulness which are review popularity, comments, video information, and review depth. A conceptual model is introduced based on the factor analysis. The study has significant implications to research as it provides new insights regarding the role of online video reviews in purchases decision making process

Housing Conditions in Palestinian Refugee Camps, Jordan

This paper evaluates the quality of housing in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. More than two million registered refugees live in Jordan, most of whom living in thirteen refugee camps established in the late 1960s following the Arab-Israeli conflict of 1967. Many of these camps are characterized by poor living conditions and associated health, social and environmental problems. However, there is scant empirical evidence regarding the quality of the housing in these camps. This paper addresses this gap by reporting on the findings of a questionnaire survey of 382 household units in Baqa’a Camp, the largest of the camps. The quantitative survey was triangulated by a series of extensive fieldwork visits to the area. Findings reveal that the housing in the camp is generally substandard. Poor structure and maintenance are key problems and this paper identifies and discusses various challenges, political and practical, that stand in the way of housing improvements. The paper concludes by suggesting that new models of ownership and responsibility need to be forged between the stakeholders in order to break the current stalemate of inaction

Analytical study of the COVID apps users’ perception about data security and privacy

COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many across the globe. Mobile tracing and exposure apps have been used to mitigate the problem and curb the spread of the virus. Wide exposure of the apps is in need for them to be effective. However, concerns about factors like data privacy and security affect users’ perception and participation in them. In this study, our goal is to investigate how information privacy and security may impact users’ ratings of COVID-19 apps. In addition, we explore how political typology also influences the ratings. We considered 31 apps related to COVID-19 exposure and tracing in the United States. From these apps, we managed to scrape data related to 29 from Google play digital store and extracted 1,832 reviews. After analyzing the user reviews our preliminary findings show that the polarity and subjectivity of the review are significantly associated with the reviewers’ apps ratings. Interestingly, we find this relationship intensifies when security and privacy issues are addressed in the reviews. In addition, we find that political ideology plays a significant role in how users rate COVID apps. The findings of this research have implications for both theory and practice

Business Innovation through knowledge sharing: An applied study on the Jordanian Mobile Telecommunications Sector

The study aimed to identify and examine the influence of the individual and organizational knowledge sharing enablers on knowledge sharing behavior that leads to develop firm innovation capability. A descriptive analytical methodology approach was adopted in this research. For the purpose of data collection; a questionnaire was developed and administered for collecting data from the sample. 150 questionnaires were distributed randomly to employees in the managerial and development levels of the companies, (98) retrieved and (95) were accepted for analysis. After that, data analysis took place to examine the study variables. After conducting the analysis, the study found that while there is a positive effect of the individual factor “enjoyment in helping others” and the organizational factor “top management support” on the employee knowledge sharing behavior. There is no influence of the individual factor “knowledge self efficacy” and the organizational factor “organizational rewards” on the employee knowledge sharing behavior. Keywords: knowledge sharing, innovation, telecommunications, Jorda

The Use of Aspirin for the Treatment of Malignancies: Review Study

The present review study reviewed the literature for the possible therapeutic roles of aspirin against tumors. Aspirin has various therapeutic properties among which is the anti-inflammatory property. Epidemiological studies have proved the efficacy of long term use of aspirin in reducing the incidence of colorectal cancer by up to 30%, and the cancer risk as well. Although no exact mechanism has been entirely proposed so far to explain the antineoplastic effect of aspirin against cancer, two mechanisms have been under focus, the first is related to its anti-inflammatory properties which are thought to suppress the inflammatory mediators and to inhibit carcinogenic mechanisms, and the other mechanism is through the deactivation of COX2. We would like to raise the possibility for aspirin to be regularly involved in preventive mechanisms