ON THE EMERGENCE OF A GULF ENGLISH VARIETY: A SOCIOCULTURAL APPROACH

The paper discusses the question of Linguistic identity in the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (henceforth CCASG). The notion of identity is analysed with reference to linguistic practices as a sociocultural means of communication. The existing register is a natural outcome on which the vast and fast process of modernization is reflected. The paper discusses a corpus of the Gulf register to seek an answer for the question of how the Arabic Gulf native identity impacts the English linguistic practice, as an interdisciplinary and integrative part in the sociocultural approach. Arabic meets with English as a global non-native variety of English and results in the new Gulf code. The result of the examination of linguistic practices confirm that identity in the Gulf reflects a cultural transformation and does not resist the new linguistic and sociocultural system. The selected theoretical framework for the analysis is drawn from a variety of linguistic sub-disciplines and research traditions. The sociocultural approach is selected for this study as it is the most applicable

Identity construction and felt-accountability of Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists : the case of the Gaza Strip

This study critically explores the relationship between identity construction and felt-accountability amongst human rights activists working in Palestinian and Israeli advocacy NGOs from a postcolonial perspective. Prior accounting research in NGOs has prioritised the relational and functional accountability of NGOs over individual accountability of their members. Moreover, advocacy NGOs have not received similar attention compared with development and welfare NGOs. This thesis addresses the new construct of felt-accountability using Postcolonial Theory to explore the impact of postcolonial identity on activists' professional identity vis-à-vis felt-accountability. For this purpose, I conducted 25 semi-structured interviews with 14 Palestinian activists working in Palestinian advocacy NGOs and 11 Israeli activists working in Israeli advocacy NGOs, of whom seven activists introduce themselves as Palestinians despite their Israeli citizenship. I adopted the critical discourse analysis using Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach to analyse the interviews narratives at the three-level analysis (Textual, Discursive and Social). The study provides theoretical and empirical insights about the construction of a postcolonial identity by activists. It reveals that activists engage in identity work and adopt multiple tactics to manage their postcolonial and professional identities, which influences their enactment of felt-accountability. The study suggests felt-accountability as a by-product of identity that has an affirmative role in affirming the authentic identity of the colonised and their representation of the Self. This reciprocal impact has resulted in distinctive forms of felt-accountability, as well as several noticeable limitations and dark sides. It also explains how felt-accountability is perceived at individual and collective levels. Contrary to prior research in the field, this study reveals that felt-accountability, which is discursive and reflexive in nature, does not necessarily match the imposed accountability of advocacy NGOs. As a result, activists find themselves in conversations of accountability with their NGOs in which they exchange their power relations to settle the two accountabilities. This study has several contributions drawing attention to the significance of identity in shaping felt-accountability, which NGOs and their funders should consider when accountability is in demand. It reveals the emancipatory potentials of felt-accountability associated with innovation, creativity, and commitment, hence assisting advocacy NGOs in pursuing their objectives and protecting their victims. The study encourages future research to focus more explicitly on how other identities, e.g. gender in NGOs, could facilitate the development of specific types of accountability in different organisational settings, e.g. social movements, and how felt-accountability could enable organisational members to change their current identity positions.James Watt scholarshi

Modelling Truck Stop Destinations and Durations Within a Truck Tour Micro-Simulation Framework for the GTHA, Ontario, Canada

In recent years, an increasing number of researchers and practitioners have shown an interest in model freight transportation activities. These activities have been growing at a significant rate due to globalization and the dependence on goods that are produced in offshore markets. Prior freight models were often aggregated, which made them less reliable for policy analysis. A remedy to overcome the limitations in aggregate model is to develop agent-based micro-simulation transportation models. These models are more comprehensive, thereby allowing them to calculate more accurate predictions. The current study utilizes data extracted from truck GPS records to model freight movements as the outcome of truck tours. A modeling framework is proposed for use in simulating the tours of individual trucks. The framework starts by predicting the number of tours per individual establishments. This is followed by micro-simulating each tour travel time, duration, and exact starting time. A stop generation model was used to predict the number of stops per tour and then the purpose of all intermediate stops within the tour. Next, the location of truck stops and the dwelling time at each stop are simulated. The focus of this research is to study the destination and duration of truck tour stops, and the analysis of the tours will make use of advanced statistical and geo-spatial modeling techniques. The results allow us to identify the significant factors that impact the movement of heavy trucks on the road network system. The geospatial and statistical results form the basis for developing a more comprehensive understanding of freight movement processes in Ontario. The models were incorporated in the proposed agent-based simulation model and were then used to predict the destination and duration of truck tour stops at the micro-level

A blueprint of Saudi English typology: A substrate effect

Although some Englishes in Asia have received extensive attention, the grammar of Saudi English remains relatively unexamined. It remains unclear whether the Saudi English grammatical (or morphosyntactic) patterns derive from universal principles. Al-Rawi (2012); Mahboob and Elyas (2014) seem to provide an individual description. This paper is an attempt to provide an analysis for the morphosyntactic features of the variety of English in Saudi Arabia from a global approach by adopting Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi (2004) geographic and variety-specific perspectives. Our findings show that Saudi English has 7 distinctive features. Four of them are universal. Due to the limitations in covering all the distinctive features and due the clear analogy between these features and the substrate Arabic patterns, we argue that the distinctive features are simply the result of the substrate influence rather than universal principles that derive these deviant form

Performance measurement and NPOs' effectiveness: does internal stakeholders' trust matter? Evidence from Palestine

Purpose: This study proposes a model of the effect of financial and non-financial performance measures on nonprofit organizations’ (NPOs’) effectiveness where internal stakeholders' trust play an intervening role in the aforementioned relationships. Design/methodology/approach: Data were collected from 218 employees working at the largest Palestinian NPOs. The perceptions of these employees were used to measure the variables, and structural equation modeling was used to examine the hypotheses. Findings: Results suggest that the use of financial and non-financial performance measures was positively related to NPOs' effectiveness. Internal stakeholders' trust showed a significant mediating effect between the use of performance measures and NPOs' effectiveness. Practical implications: This study may be of value for NPOs' managers due to the positive effects performance measurement (PM) can have on NPO effectiveness. Managers and boards should seek to enhance their internal stakeholders' trust to achieve higher levels of effectiveness. Originality/value: This study has three main contributions. First, it is one of the very few papers which empirically examines the links between PM and NPOs' effectiveness, rather than providing conceptual lens. Second, the paper investigates the role of stakeholders' trust as a mediating mechanism in the proposed model, a topic that has been neglected by NPOs governance researchers. Finally, the study uses data from the Palestinian context, contributing to the PM literature by providing evidence on the relationship between performance measures and NPOs' effectiveness from a non-Western context

A protease activated receptor-2 (PAR-2) activating peptide, tc-LIGRLO-NH(2), induces protease release from mast cells: role in TNF degradation

BACKGROUND: Mast cell (MC)-derived serine proteases have been implicated in a variety of inflammatory processes. We have previously shown that rat peritoneal MC (PMC) express mRNA for protease activated receptor 2 (PAR-2), a G-coupled receptor activated by trypsin-like proteases. Recent evidence also suggests that MC-induced inflammation can be mediated through PAR. Therefore, we hypothesized that specific PAR-2 agonist peptides (PAR-2ap) induce protease release from PMC. RESULTS: Western blot analysis of PMC supernatants revealed that a PAR-2ap, tc-LIGRLO (10 μM), stimulated the release of rat MC protease (RMCP)-1, RMCP-5 and carboxypeptidase-A. The release was evident by 20 min but further increased up to 8 h. To study the biological effects of protease release we tested supernatants from tc-LIGRLO, tc-OLRGIL (inactive control peptide) and antigen-activated PMC for proteolytic activity by seeding with TNF (150 pg/ml), incubating for 8 h at 37°C, and measuring TNF remaining in the supernatants. Supernatants from tc-LIGRLO-stimulated PMC degraded 44 % of seeded TNF (n = 5). Moreover, this TNF proteolysis was dependent on the concentration of tc-LIGRLO used to stimulate PMC, and was significantly inhibited (94 %) by soybean trypsin inhibitor. Antigen and tc-OLRGIL induced no significant release of such proteolytic activity. CONCLUSIONS: These data indicate that a PAR-2ap induces the release of proteases from mast cells, which may degrade extracellular cytokines and other substrates thus modulating the inflammatory response