How is technology accepted by users? A review of technology acceptance models and theories

This paper provides a literature review of the popular theories and models of technology acceptance of relevance to today’s technology developments in the 4E context. The original technology acceptance model (TAM) was derived from the theory of reasoned action and has since been developed and extended to include factors of age, gender, prior experience, ability, etc. It provides the framework to measure users’ perceptions of and intentions to use technology within and across organisations. Through research TAM has been empirically proven to be a robust model for understanding end-user adoption of technology and for examining the acceptance of new and developing technology by users with different characteristics in different organisations. The flexibility of TAM to be extended and modified to take into account other relevant factors makes it a powerful framework. This paper identifies the underpinning theories and potential application in a concise way and concludes that TAM has and will provide underpinning for further understanding of the pedagogy-technology-epistemology relationship in the development of technology use<br/

مقالة في التواصل التجاوزي

Current semiotic and linguistic perspectives on man, mind, information and communication, do not seem to cover the full image of the minded creature. Limiting perspective to the receiver's side of the process contradicts Jacobson's communication functions and Plato's text typology in which the conative function of communication is clear and binding; the message-receiver relationship obliges man to respond in some way to information targeting him. Considering the unique position of man, this paper introduces the idea of Transcendent Communication in the Holy Qur'n as presented in Suras 55 and 87. The receiver requires a justification of his temporal physical mortality, which reason alone, cannot answer. It attempts to illustrate the implicit value system of the Transcendent Message, which puts the receiver in the know as to his coming, mission, departure and final abode.الملخص : تقصر بعض المناظير العلاماتية واللغوية للإنسان والعقل والعلم والتواصل، عن عرض كامل الصورة للمخلوق العاقل، حين تحصر زاوية النظر في جانب التلقي، مما يخالف أغراض الكلام عند رومان يكوبسن، وتصنيف النصوص عند أفلاطون، والتي تبرز قصدية وظيفة التواصل، واضحة ملزمة؛ فليس أمام المتلقي، وفق العلاقة القائمة بينه وبين الرسالة، غير الاستجابة لما يصله من علم، سواءً صدقَّ أو أنكر. آخذين في الحسبان المركز الفريد للإنسان. تطرح هذه الورقة فكرة التواصل التجاوزي في القرآن الكريم كما يرد في سورتي الرحمن والأعلى؛ فالمتلقي تواق الى بيان علة فناءه البدني وزواله رغم حبه للحياة، الأمر الذي لامجال للعقلان فيه منفردا. ومن ثم تسعى هذه الورقة أيضا الى بيان النسق الضمني للقيم في الرسالة التجاوزية للقرآن العظيم، مما يضع المتلقي التواق في النور حيال خلقه ورسالته ومعاده وقراره

Implementation of multi carrier-code division multiple access-frequency division multiple access with beyond 4G specifications

Hybrid code division multiple access techniques present the open door for the future of code division multiple access and wireless communications. Multicarrier CDMA is the most popular type of hybrid CDMA because of its robustness against multipath fading channels and flexible multiple access capability. MC-CDMA is a predictable technique for future high data rate wireless communication systems according to these appealed properties. The main drawback of MC-CDMA is the power level in uplink, i.e. the ratio of peak power to the average power is high and leads to high instantaneous power which is required in transmission of mobile station. However, there are many researchers working towards reducing the level of the transmitted power. This research presents new method of peak to average power ratio (PAPR) reduction. The proposed method is making use of the characteristics of uplink for current 4th Generation (single carrier frequency division multiple access) which has low PAPR into current MC-CDMA system to reproduce a new MC-CDMA system (MC-CDMA-FDMA) with low PAPR and keep all the characteristics of the basic MC-CDMA system. MC-CDMA-FDMA reduced the level of power from 10 dB to 2 dB in case of 64 FFT size and Walsh Hadamard code is used in spreading block. In addition bit error rate has been reduced from 96x10-5 bps to 82x10-5 bps comparing to SC-FDMA bit error rate. The proposed system also has high flexibility to deal with modern communication systems with minimum required hardware at the base station through optimization of FFT size. The simulation results show that MC-CDMA-FDMA system will be a good candidate for beyond 4th Generation for mobile communication

Metadata as a service (MetaaS) model for cloud computing

Cloud computing has become the most attractive field in industry and research. Metadata as a Service (MetaaS) is an emerging technique that could help the cloud users, and cloud service providers (CSPs) according their needs. The increasing of the speed of searching and acquiring against the number of the data services in cloud computing that has leads the researchers to think about implementing a new technique. MetaaS model uses to serve as a backbone for providing and searching for data storage in cloud computing. MetaaS model consists of three main layers as Metadata component, cloud users and CSPs. The Metadata components consists of six main components as Metadata Entity (ME), Metadata File Information (MFI), Metadata Catalog Service (MCS), Metadata Management Engine (MME), Metadata Capturing (MC) and Metadata Analysis (MA). In this paper, an approach for enabling searching, storing, accessing, retrieving, and capturing the data from Cloud Data Storage (CDS) based on MetaaS model is presented. Taking the production of CDS service as example, this paper gives formal analysis of system running and compares with other related work. The results show that the model presents good reference on the construction of cloud computing applications and services according to the cloud services functionalities and MetaaS components

TAT-peptide conjugated repurposing drug against SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CLpro): potential therapeutic intervention to combat COVID-19

The Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that originated in Chinese city of Wuhan has caused around 906,092 deaths and 28,040,853 confirmed cases worldwide (WHO, 11 September, 2020). In a life-threatening situation, where there is no specific and licensed anti-COVID-19 vaccine or medicine available; the repurposed drug might act as a silver bullet. Currently, more than 211 vaccines, 80 antibodies, 31 antiviral drugs, 35 cell-based, 6 RNA-based and 131 other drugs are in clinical trials. It is therefore utter need of the hour to develop an effective drug that can be used for the treatment of COVID-19 before a vaccine can be developed. One of the best-characterized and attractive drug targets among coronaviruses is the main protease (3CL^{pro}). Therefore, the current study focuses on the molecular docking analysis of TAT-peptide^{47–57} (GRKKRRQRRRP)-conjugated repurposed drugs (i.e., lopinavir, ritonavir, favipiravir, and hydroxychloroquine) with SARS-CoV-2 main protease (3CL^{pro} to discover potential efficacy of TAT-peptide (TP) - conjugated repurposing drugs against SARS-CoV-2. The molecular docking results validated that TP-conjugated ritonavir, lopinavir, favipiravir, and hydroxychloroquine have superior and significantly enhanced interactions with the target SARS-CoV-2 main protease. In-silico approach employed in this study suggests that the combination of the drug with TP is an excelling alternative to develop a novel drug for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infected patients. The development of TP based delivery of repurposing drugs might be an excellent approach to enhance the efficacy of the existing drugs for the treatment of COVID-19. The predictions from the results obtained provide invaluable information that can be utilized for the choice of candidate drugs for in vitro, in vivo and clinical trials. The outcome from this work prove crucial for exploring and developing novel cost-effective and biocompatible TP conjugated anti-SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic agents in immediate future

Polyphenols and Their Nanoformulations: Protective Effects against Human Diseases

Polyphenols are the secondary metabolites synthesized by the plants as a part of defense machinery. Owing to their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancerous, antineoplastic, and immunomodulatory effects, natural polyphenols have been used for a long time to prevent and treat a variety of diseases. As a result, these phytochemicals may be able to act as therapeutic agents in treating cancer and cardiovascular and neurological disorders. The limited bioavailability of polyphenolic molecules is one issue with their utilization. For the purpose of increasing the bioavailability of these chemicals, many formulation forms have been developed, with nanonization standing out among them. The present review outlines the biological potential of nanoformulated plant polyphenolic compounds. It also summarizes the employability of various polyphenols as nanoformulations for cancer and neurological and cardiovascular disease treatment. Nanoencapsulated polyphenols, singular or in combinations, effective both in vitro and in vivo, need more investigation

Incidence of hip fracture in Saudi Arabia and the development of a FRAX model

Summary A prospective hospital-based survey in representative regions of Saudi Arabia determined the incidence of fractures at the hip. The hip fracture rates were used to create a FRAX® model to facilitate fracture risk assessment in Saudi Arabia. Objective This paper describes the incidence of hip fracture in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that was used to characterize the current and future burden of hip fracture, to develop a country-specific FRAX® tool for fracture prediction and to compare fracture probabilities with neighbouring countries. Methods During a 2-year (2017/2018) prospective survey in 15 hospitals with a defined catchment population, hip fractures in Saudi citizens were prospectively identified from hospital registers. The number of hip fractures and future burden was determined from national demography. Age- and sex-specific incidence of hip fracture and national mortality rates were incorporated into a FRAX model for Saudi Arabia. Fracture probabilities were compared with those from Kuwait and Abu Dhabi. Results The incidence of hip fracture applied nationally suggested that the estimated number of hip fractures nationwide in persons over the age of 50 years for 2015 was 2,949 and is predicted to increase nearly sevenfold to 20,328 in 2050. Hip fracture rates were comparable with estimates from Abu Dhabi and Kuwait. By contrast, probabilities of a major osteoporotic fracture or hip fracture from the age of 70 years were much lower than those seen in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait due to higher mortality estimates for Saudi Arabia. Conclusion A country-specific FRAX tool for fracture prediction has been developed for Saudi Arabia which is expected to help guide decisions about treatment

Biosynthesized ZnO-NPs from Morus indica attenuates methylglyoxal-induced protein glycation and RBC damage: In-vitro, in-vivo and molecular docking study

The development of advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) inhibitors is considered to have therapeutic potential in diabetic complications inhibiting the loss of the biomolecular function. In the present study, zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) were synthesized from aqueous leaf extract of Morus indica and were characterized by various techniques such as ultraviolet (UV)-Vis spectroscopy, Powder X-Ray Diffraction (PXRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Further, the inhibition of AGEs formation after exposure to ZnO-NPs was investigated by in-vitro, in-vivo, and molecular docking studies. Biochemical and histopathological changes after exposure to ZnO-NPs were also studied in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. ZnO-NPs showed an absorption peak at 359 nm with a purity of 92.62% and ~6–12 nm in size, which is characteristic of nanoparticles. The images of SEM showed agglomeration of smaller ZnO-NPs and EDS authenticating that the synthesized nanoparticles were without impurities. The biosynthesized ZnO-NPs showed significant inhibition in the formation of AGEs. The particles were effective against methylglyoxal (MGO) mediated glycation of bovine serum albumin (BSA) by inhibiting the formation of AGEs, which was dose-dependent. Further, the presence of MGO resulted in complete damage of biconcave red blood corpuscles (RBCs) to an irregular shape, whereas the morphological changes were prevented when they were treated with ZnO-NPs leading to the prevention of complications caused due to glycation. The administration of ZnO-NPs (100 mg Kg−1) in streptozotocin(STZ)-induced diabetic rats reversed hyperglycemia and significantly improved hepatic enzymes level and renal functionality, also the histopathological studies revealed restoration of kidney and liver damage nearer to normal conditions. Molecular docking of BSA with ZnO-NPs confirms that masking of lysine and arginine residues is one of the possible mechanisms responsible for the potent antiglycation activity of ZnO-NPs. The findings strongly suggest scope for exploring the therapeutic potential of diabetes-related complications.Fil: Anandan, Satish. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Mahadevamurthy, Murali. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Ansari, Mohammad Azam. Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University; Arabia SauditaFil: Alzohairy, Mohammad A.. Al Qassim University; Arabia SauditaFil: Alomary, Mohammad N.. King Abdulaziz City For Science And Technology; Arabia SauditaFil: Siraj, Syeda Farha. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Nagaraja, Sarjan Halugudde. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Chikkamadaiah, Mahendra. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Ramachandrappa, Lakshmeesha Thimappa. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Krishnappa, Hemanth Kumar Naguvanahalli. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Ledesma, Ana Estela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet Noa Sur. Centro de Investigación en Biofísica Aplicada y Alimentos. - Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero. Centro de Investigación en Biofísica Aplicada y Alimentos; ArgentinaFil: Nagaraj, Amruthesh Kestur. University of Mysore; IndiaFil: Urooj, Asna. University of Mysore; Indi

The Chemical Speciation of Trace-Metals in Street Dusts of Irbid, Jordan

Abstract Street dust samples were collected from different locations in Irbid city, Jordan. The concentrations of Pb, Cu, Zn, Cd, Ni, Mn, Cr and Al in these samples were determined usin