The impact of trusted and secured transactions in an e-commerce environment on consumers’ behaviour : the case of Saudis in the UK

The work reported in this paper is part of a larger study that attempts to compare the online activities of Saudis living in Saudi Arabia and those living in the United Kingdom (UK). The study aims to answer the question on whether the environment plays a key role and impact on the activities of Saudis online customers. This paper deals only with the research conducted in the UK and attempts to understand the activities and perception of Business to Customer (B2C) E-Commerce (EC) among Saudis living in the UK. This study tries to assess the impact of the environmental change on the online shopping behaviour. Quantitative data was collected from 169 Saudis living in the UK. Trust in both security and payment (SP) were tested as well as nine hypotheses. The results confirm that there is a high number of Saudi residents living in the UK trusting the security and payment systems when engaging in online transactions in the UK. Furthermore, the outcomes of hypotheses testing show that the new secured and trusted environment affects Saudis consumers in the UK. Hence, these primary results suggest that the environment plays an important role in changing the shopping behaviors of online customers

Current state on internet growth and usage in Saudi Arabia and its ability to support e-commerce development

It is widely recognized that the Internet has been rapidly growing and massively used in recent years. Previous studies have revealed that this is true for Internet users across the world. Likewise it is reported, lack of ICT infrastructures is one of the main reasons behind lack of spread of E-Commerce. The study attempted to understand the state of Internet growth and activities usage and its ability to support E-Commerce development. Little attention has been paid to testing particular questions in this study which proper investigation can help in understanding the prospects of the development and adoption of E-Commerce. The current study will attempt to confirm whether similar growth and usage of the Internet is also happening in Saudi Arabia and whether this will help in establishing a platform of E-Commerce development. Quantitative data was gathered from 606 Saudis living in various parts of Saudi Arabia. Four questions related to the use of the Internet in Saudi Arabia are tested. The outcome shows that the findings are similar to those of other countries. In addition, individuals’ readiness to use the Internet as their main shopping medium is approved by more than half of the sample used

The impact of social influence and third party endorsement on online shopping in Saudi Arabia

It is well documented that social influence and third party endorsements play a significant role in developing trust in E-Commerce. Previous studies have shown that it is relatively true in many countries and across cultures. However, very few studies were conducted in the Middle East and to our knowledge this was the first time to consider family members and friends Recommendation with the context of social influence conducted within Saudi Arabia. The research reported in this paper attempts to investigate whether the findings from previous studies will be similar in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, this study will evaluate the impact of social influence and endorsements on online shopping and whether this plays an important role in increasing online shopping in Saudi Arabia. The results of this study are based on quantitative data collected from a sample of 606 Saudis citizens living in Saudi Arabia. Four factors connected to the impact of social influence and third party endorsements in online shopping are examined. The initial findings of this research confirm that there are similarities with the results of previous studies conducted in other countries. Similarly, the impact of social influence and third party endorsements seems to encourage and support the development of online shopping in Saudi Arabia

Securing Fog Federation from Behavior of Rogue Nodes

As the technological revolution advanced information security evolved with an increased need for confidential data protection on the internet. Individuals and organizations typically prefer outsourcing their confidential data to the cloud for processing and storage. As promising as the cloud computing paradigm is, it creates challenges; everything from data security to time latency issues with data computation and delivery to end-users. In response to these challenges CISCO introduced the fog computing paradigm in 2012. The intent was to overcome issues such as time latency and communication overhead and to bring computing and storage resources close to the ground and the end-users. Fog computing was, however, considered an extension of cloud computing and as such, inherited the same security and privacy challenges encountered by traditional cloud computing. These challenges accelerated the research community\u27s efforts to find practical solutions. In this dissertation, we present three approaches for individual and organizational data security and protection while that data is in storage in fog nodes or in the cloud. We also consider the protection of these data while in transit between fog nodes and the cloud, and against rogue fog nodes, man-in-the-middle attacks, and curious cloud service providers. The techniques described successfully satisfy each of the main security objectives of confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Further we study the impact of rogue fog nodes on end-user devices. These approaches include a new concept, the Fog-Federation (FF): its purpose to minimize communication overhead and time latency between the Fog Nodes (FNs) and the Cloud Service Provider (CSP) during the time the system is unavailable as a rogue Fog Node (FN) is being ousted. Further, we considered the minimization of data in danger of breach by rogue fog nodes. We demonstrate the efficiency and feasibility of each approach by implementing simulations and analyzing security and performance

The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and the Level of Literary Appreciation Skills among Arabic Language Teachers for the Secondary Stage in Najran Region

The study aimed at identifying the relationship between emotional intelligence and the level of literary appreciation skills among Arabic language teachers for the secondary stage in Najran region. To achieve this aim, the researchers used the descriptive analytical method. The researchers used two questionnaires; the first one was to measure the level of emotional intelligence, which consisted of 38 items, and the second one was to measure the level of literary appreciation scale, which consisted of 20 items. The research sample consisted of 105 teachers chosen randomly, 28 males and 77 females. The results of the study indicated that the level of emotional intelligence and the level of literary appreciation skills among the teachers was high. There were no statistically significant differences at the level of emotional intelligence attributed to the variables of gender, qualification, and experience, and there were no statistically significant differences at the level of literary appreciation skills attributed to the variables of gender, qualification, and experience. In addition, the results indicated that there was a significant correlation between the level of emotional intelligence and the level of literary appreciation skills. There was a statistically significant effect of emotional intelligence and its dimensions on the level of literary appreciation skills among Arabic language teachers. Emotional intelligence was able to explain 0.503 of the variances in the level of literary appreciation skills among teachers of Arabic language

Advanced Atomic Layer Deposition Techniques for Metal-Insulator-Metal Diodes

Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) diodes are nanoelectronic devices that operate by quantum tunneling of electrons through a thin dielectric layer to rectify high frequency alternating current (AC) to usable direct current (DC). In this research, two fabrication techniques are explored to improve the MIM diode fabrication process; the introduction of a thickness gradient and doping of the insulator layer. Atmospheric pressure spatial atomic layer deposition (AP-SALD) is used for the first time for the combinatorial fabrication of MIM diodes. This unique technique is used to deposit thin dielectric films with a thickness gradient. A plasma-assisted atomic layer deposition (PAALD) technique is utilized for deposition of nitrogen-doped TiO2 films. Tuning the electron affinity (χ) of the insulator by doping is expected to improve the rectification of the diode. Pt-Al2O3-Al diodes have been fabricated by AP-SALD to demonstrate the capability of this method for rapid, scalable and atmospheric insulator layer deposition. Current-voltage measurements of these diodes exhibit high asymmetry and nonlinearity. In addition, AP-SALD was implemented to fabricate combinatorial and high-throughput Pl-Al2O3-Al diodes via the introduction of an Al2O3 thickness gradient. Current-voltage characteristics and figures of merit (FOM) for the MIM diodes show variations with the thickness gradient of the Al2O3 insulator. A plasma assisted atomic layer deposition (PAALD) system was used to deposit nitrogen-doped titanium dioxide. A simple approach was developed that requires only a nitrogen plasma and short plasma exposure times to effectively dope TiO2. A range of nitrogen dopant concentrations were achieved by varying the flow rate and exposure times of nitrogen and oxygen plasmas. A nitrogen content as high as 27.2±0.5 at. % was observed when only the nitrogen plasma was used. The type of nitrogen doping can be varied from purely substitutional to entirely interstitial, as measured by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). UV-Visible spectroscopy measurements showed a shifting in the absorption edge from 350 to 520nm with doping, indicating band gap narrowing from 3.1eV to 1.8eV

Computational study on encapsulation of 5-fluorouracil drug in nanotubes

Cancer remains a major health concern worldwide, causing high rates of morbidity and mortality. Although chemotherapy with antitumor drugs is the most common treatment for cancer, certain disadvantages limit its usage, such as the damage caused to healthy cells, side effects, and toxicity. Owing to their geometric and mechanical properties, nanotubes are promising nanocarriers of anticancer drugs. Here, the interaction energies of the encapsulation of an anticancer drug by single-walled nanotubes were calculated through the application of the 6–12 Lennard-Jones function with a continuous approach. In particular, the interaction energies of the 5-fluorouracil drug entering three different nanotubes (carbon, silicon and boron nitride) and the offset equilibria inside the nanotubes were obtained. This study aimed at determining the appropriate type and favorable size of nanotubes that can be used to encapsulate the 5-fluorouracil drug. The results showed that the optimal radii of nanotubes for encapsulating the 5-fluorouracil drug were approximately 6.08, 6.05 and 5.98 Å for carbon, boron nitride and silicon nanotubes, corresponding to -16.55, -18.20 and -17.81 kcal/mol, respectively