Utilization of Business Intelligence Tools among Business Intelligence Users

The study was an investigation of the impact of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of business intelligence (BI) tools among users.  The relationship between and among the dependent variable (utilization of BI tools) and the independent variables (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) was investigated through the lenses of technology acceptance model (TAM).  Other objectives for the current research were to build a model to predict users’ utilization of the independent variables, and to generalize the results of the research to the IT population.  Data for the current research was collected utilizing a survey questionnaire, designed by the researcher, with a 5-point Likert scale to interpret responses to the survey questions.  The analysis consisted of descriptive statistics and multiple regressions models.  A prediction model was structured using generalized linear models.  The result of the study was the development of a prediction model for BI tools utilization through the lenses of a technology acceptance model (TAM).  The model highlighted the importance of up-to-date information provided by current BI tools, ability of BI tools to provide users with more analytical tools to accomplish their jobs, the degree to which BI tools allow users to present convincing arguments, the ability of BI tools to provide users with more possible solutions, the ability of BI tools to reduce the time required to accomplish jobs, and the ability of BI tools to help users make relevant business predictions

Utilization of Business Intelligence Tools among Business Intelligence Users

The study was an investigation of the impact of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of business intelligence (BI) tools among users. The relationship between and among the dependent variable (utilization of BI tools) and the independent variables (perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use) was investigated through the lenses of technology acceptance model (TAM). Other objectives for the current research were to build a model to predict users’ utilization of the independent variables, and to generalize the results of the research to the IT population. Data for the current research was collected utilizing a survey questionnaire, designed by the researcher, with a 5-point Likert scale to interpret responses to the survey questions. The analysis consisted of descriptive statistics and multiple regressions models. A prediction model was structured using generalized linear models. The result of the study was the development of a prediction model for BI tools utilization through the lenses of a technology acceptance model (TAM). The model highlighted the importance of up-to-date information provided by current BI tools, ability of BI tools to provide users with more analytical tools to accomplish their jobs, the degree to which BI tools allow users to present convincing arguments, the ability of BI tools to provide users with more possible solutions, the ability of BI tools to reduce the time required to accomplish jobs, and the ability of BI tools to help users make relevant business predictions

Novel light trapping techniques for silicon solar cells.

Thin-film silicon photovoltaic (PV) solar cells have attracted significant interest for decades due to the increasing demand for clean and sustainable energy resources. Further reduction of the cost of materials and manufacturing processes is required to reach the grid parity where the cost of electricity from solar PV cells is equal to the cost of other nonrenewable resources. Crystalline and thin-film silicon solar cells are anticipated to continue to be one of the dominant solar PV cell technologies. This anticipation is due to the abundance of silicon and the successful history of a continuous drop in cost in silicon-based PV cells. In this thesis, several designs were investigated to enhance absorption of sunlight in the active layers of silicon-based solar cells. In the first design, a plasmonic enhancement to silicon solar cells using (Titanium nitride) TiN as a replacement for silver is studied. In the second, a new design for tandem thin-film silicon solar cells is proposed using a periodic layer between the two subcells. Finally, a low-cost easily fabricated nanocone facial textures is proposed and showed promising experimental and simulation antireflection properties. 3D electromagnetic analysis was performed using finite difference time domain (FDTD) simulations to all structures and 3D Device simulations were additionally used to study the tandem cell structure. These contributions which were published are believed to contribute towards achieving high efficiency and cost-effective solar cells

Wearable Conformal Antennas for 2.4 GHz Wireless Body Area Networks

 Microstrip fed inset patch antennas embedded in planar and cylindrically curved surfaces are introduced to be used in Body Area Networks (BANs) presented. These antennas are designed as wearable antennas for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) band wireless communication networking. The proposed antennas consist of 50 Ω microstrip line feeding inset patch printed on the front face of dielectric substrate and a rectangular ground plane on the bottom face. The proposed planar antenna is conformed on finite cylindrical substrates of radii 2.5, 5 and 7.5 cm corresponding approximately to the typical size of human wrist, humerus and shoulder of a human body respectively. Modeling and performance evaluation of the cylindrical structures has been carried out using the commercially available electromagnetic software CST Studio Suite2009. Simulation results, obtained for the return losses, current distribution, and radiation pattern of the antennas are presented. Furthermore, results show that the designed conformal antennas are resonating at the designed frequency with reasonable gain and field pattern characteristics

Sentential negation in English and Arabic: A minimalist approach

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--University of Kansas, Linguistics, 2001.This dissertation presents an analysis for sentential negation in English and Arabic within the framework of the Minimalist Program as outlined in Chomsky (1993, 1995). To provide a comprehensive analysis for sentential negation in Arabic, six Arabic dialects are studied, namely, Standard Arabic, Moroccan Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, Jordanian Arabic, Syrian Arabic, and Saudi Arabic. The analysis is also expected to be applied crosslinguistically. The analysis I provide is based on the analyses suggested by Pollock (1989) and Chomsky (1991) for English and French. I show that the movement of the verb and subject in Arabic (as proposed for English and French) is triggered by the strength of the nominal ([+D]) and verbal ([+V]) features that the heads of AgrSP and TP carry. I also show that Agr S plays a role in the word order in Standard Arabic but not in the non-Standard Arabic dialects. Evidence presented in this study shows the verb moves overtly to T in all Arabic dialects. To account for the optionality of the subject's movement in the non-Standard Arabic dialects, I suggest a third value of strength of the nominal features of T, [-strong, -weak], which means that the nominal features are not strong enough to force the movement of the subject before Spell-out or weak enough to prevent it. To account for the merger between the verb and the negative marker, I argue, along with Benmamoun (2000), that Neg is specified for a [+D] feature and the merger is to check this feature. With respect to copular sentences in English, I argue that they are best described as small clauses that are dominated by an AgrP. The place I suggest for the copula is the head of vp, which is a functional projection that dominates AgrP. I show that copular and verbless sentences in Arabic can be accounted for in a principled way if we follow the proposed structure for the English copular sentences. One difference between the two languages is that in Arabic the head of AgrP dominating the small clause can be occupied by an agreement pronoun (AGR), which may surface optionally or obligatorily

The Impact of the Interactive Whiteboard on Medical School Students' ESL Essay Writing

ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate the impact of the interactive whiteboard (IWB) on the Egyptian medical school students’ ESL (English as a Second Language) essay writing and attitudes towards writing. The study clarified the evidence regarding Egyptian medical students’ relative weakness in writing as compared to the other language skills. It therefore investigated the general areas of writing, and identified the writing skills essential for the medical students, and designed a module based on these identified skills. An experimental design was adopted. The sample was composed of sixty students randomly selected and later divided into two separate groups: one intervention group which was taught by the IWB and a control group by the traditional method which involved teaching with a pen and paper, and a whiteboard. Four instruments were used: 1) a writing micro-skill questionnaire investigating specialists’ views on the skills important to the medical students; 2) a writing test assessing students’ achievement in ESL essay writing; 3) a writing attitude survey assessing students’ views about writing before and after both methods were used. These instruments were applied to both groups, as well as an additional IWB Attitude survey assessing students’ views about the IWB before and after the intervention for the intervention group. Results reveal that twenty nine writing skills were required by students, according to the specialists’ views and, more importantly, the IWB had no positive impact on the Egyptian students’ attainment in ESL essay writing (a non- significant effect size of -0.18). By contrast, it is revealed that the IWB had a positive impact on students’ attitudes towards both writing (effect size of 1.88) and towards the board itself

Glucocorticoids induced allergic reaction

Glucocorticoids can cause allergic reaction in rare cases. A ten year old boy, known asthmatic, was treated with intramuscular injection of glucocorticoids, followed by nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. His lips turned pale along with palpitation and light headache. His right eye lid and lower lip were swollen. Heart rate was 177/min, and BP was 66/46 mmHg,. Patient spontaneously improved and symptoms resolved. IV fluids bolus, antihistamines or epinephrine were not required. The case was seen in September 2012

Lean Implementation in Jordanian Pharmaceutical Industry: The Case of Hikma Company

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effect of lean practices on productivity at process industries; the case of Hikma Pharmaceutical Company.  A quantitative approach based on survey questionnaire was used to evaluate the impact of lean tools on productivity. The paper showed that visual management, 5S, and work standards had a significant impact on productivity, whereas, waste reduction did not have a significant effect. Keywords: Lean practices, productivity, pharmaceutical industry

Scalable and Cost Efficient Algorithms for Virtual CDN Migration

Virtual Content Delivery Network (vCDN) migration is necessary to optimize the use of resources and improve the performance of the overall SDN/NFV-based CDN function in terms of network operator cost reduction and high streaming quality. It requires intelligent and enticed joint SDN/NFV migration algorithms due to the evident huge amount of traffic to be delivered to end customers of the network. In this paper, two approaches for finding the optimal and near optimal path placement(s) and vCDN migration(s) are proposed (OPAC and HPAC). Moreover, several scenarios are considered to quantify the OPAC and HPAC behaviors and to compare their efficiency in terms of migration cost, migration time, vCDN replication number, and other cost factors. Then, they are implemented and evaluated under different network scales. Finally, the proposed algorithms are integrated in an SDN/NFV framework. Index Terms: vCDN; SDN/NFV Optimization; Migration Algorithms; Scalability Algorithms.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figures, 4 tableaux, conference Local Computer Networks (LCN), class