THE CHALLENGES AND PROBLEMS FACED BY STUDENTS IN THE EARLY STAGE OF WRITING RESEARCH PROJECTS IN L2, UNIVERSITY OF BISHA, SAUDI ARABIA

Research, by its nature, is a critical challenging task requires in depth knowledge of the subject matter, planning, care, and hard work. From the students’ point of view, this paper attempts to explore the challenges that are faced by undergraduates when they are writing proposals and research projects at the early stages. The study target group comprised undergraduates in the final year in the College of Science and Arts, Al-Namas, University of Bisha, Saudi Arabia. Around 60 subjects participated in this study and they were from Department of English and Department of Computer Science who conducted their research projects in English as Second Language (ESL). The Research tools of the study include questionnaire and informal interviews with students and teachers of the target groups. Clearly, the results from study showed that around 70 % of the participants who are writing research or conducting research projects in English is one of the predominant challenges for them. Around 50% prefer to conduct their research in L1. The study explored various and common challenges/difficulties during writing the research proposals and projects such as: difficulty in deciding the topic for research, lack of good knowledge of the methodology, inability of finding modern, specialized and related references, lack of interest in research, lack of understanding of the subject matter, lack of time, and research guiding. The study also attempts to give some suggestions/recommendations for developing the process of writing research proposals and research projects.  Article visualizations

Dialog chatbot as an interactive online tool in enhancing ESP vocabulary learning

Purpose – Based on an experimental study on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) students, at the Business Department at the University of Bisha, the purpose of the study is to examine the effect of chatbot use on learning ESP in online classrooms during COVID-19 and find out how Dialogflow chabot can be a useful and interactive online platform to help ESP learners in learning vocabulary well. Design/methodology/approach – The research paper is based on an experimental study of two groups, an experiential group and a controlled group. Two tests were carried out. Pre-tests and post-test of vocabulary knowledge were conducted for both groups to explore the usefulness of using the Dialogflow chatbot in learning ESP vocabulary. A designed chatbot content was prepared and included all the vocabulary details related to words' synonyms and a brief explanation of words’ meanings. An informal interview is another tool used in the study. The purpose of using the interview with the participants was to elicit more data from the participants about using the chatbot and about how and in what aspects chatbot using the conversational program was useful and productive. Findings – The findings of the study explored that the use of chatbots plays a major role in enhancing and learning ESP vocabulary. That was clear as the results showed that the students who used the chatbot Dialogflow in the experimental group outperformed their counterparts in the control group. Research limitations/implications – The study displays an important pedagogical implication as the use of chatbots could be applied in several settings to improve language learning in general or learning ESP courses in particular. Chatbot creates an interesting environment to foster build good interactions where negotiation of meaning takes place clearly seems to be of great benefit to help learners advance in their L2 lexical development. Originality/value – Examining and exploring whether the use of chatbots plays a major role in enhancing and learning ESP vocabulary in English as Foreign Language setting

Biolinguistics: A Scientometric Analysis of Research on (Children’s) Molecular Genetics of Speech and Language (Disorders)

There are numerous children and adolescents throughout the world who are either diagnosed with speech and language disorders or manifest any of them as a result of another disorder. Meanwhile, since the emergence of language as an innate capability, the question of whether it constitutes a behaviour or an innate ability has been debated for decades. There have been several theories developed that support and demonstrate the biological foundations of human language. Molecular evidence of the biological basis of language came from the FOXP2 gene, also known as the language gene. Taking a closer look at both human language and biology, biolinguistics is at the core of these inquiries—attempting to understand the aetiologies of the genetics of speech and language disorders in children and adolescents. This paper presents empirical evidence based on both scientometrics and bibliometrics. We collected data between 1935 and 2022 from Scopus, WOS, and Lens. A total of 1570 documents were analysed from Scopus, 1440 from the WOS, and 5275 from Lens. Bibliometric analysis was performed using Excel based on generated reports from these three databases. CiteSpace 5.8.R3 and VOSviewer 1.6.18 were used to conduct the scientometric analysis. Eight bibliometric and eight scientometric indicators were used to measure the development of the field of biolinguistics, including but not limited to the production size of knowledge, the most examined topics, and the most frequent concepts and variables. A major finding of our study is identifying the most examined topics in the genetics of speech and language disorders. These included: gestural communication, structural design, cultural evolution, neural network, language tools, human language faculty, evolutionary biology, molecular biology, and theoretical perspective on language evolution

DDoS Attack Prevention for Internet of Thing Devices Using Ethereum Blockchain Technology

The Internet of Things (IoT) has widely expanded due to its advantages in enhancing the business, industrial, and social ecosystems. Nevertheless, IoT infrastructure is susceptible to several cyber-attacks due to the endpoint devices’ restrictions in computation, storage, and communication capacity. As such, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks pose a serious threat to the security of the IoT. Attackers can easily utilize IoT devices as part of botnets to launch DDoS attacks by taking advantage of their flaws. This paper proposes an Ethereum blockchain model to detect and prevent DDoS attacks against IoT systems. Additionally, the proposed system can be used to resolve the single points of failure (dependencies on third parties) and privacy and security in IoT systems. First, we propose implementing a decentralized platform in place of current centralized system solutions to prevent DDoS attacks on IoT devices at the application layer by authenticating and verifying these devices. Second, we suggest tracing and recording the IP address of malicious devices inside the blockchain to prevent them from connecting and communicating with the IoT networks. The system performance has been evaluated by performing 100 experiments to evaluate the time taken by the authentication process. The proposed system highlights two messages with a time of 0.012 ms: the first is the request transmitted from the IoT follower device to join the blockchain, and the second is the blockchain response. The experimental evaluation demonstrated the superiority of our system because there are fewer I/O operations in the proposed system than in other related works, and thus it runs substantially faster

Arabic Validation of the Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory to Assess Pragmatic Language Development in Preschoolers with and without Pragmatic Language Impairment

Objective: An individual’s articulation of pragmatic language development (PLD) signifies successful social interaction with others. Therefore, it is important to detect early pragmatic language impairment (PLI), whether as a primary disorder or as a symptom of other neurodevelopmental disorders. This study reports on validating the Arabic version of the Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory (A-PLSI). Methods: The PLSI was subjected to various validation stages before the A-PLSI was created. To assess PLD in preschoolers with and without psychiatric histories, 264 preschoolers were assessed in several cities in Saudi Arabia by their teachers and speech–language pathologists. Results: The results of this study included three key findings. First, the established psychometric features, including construct validity, criterion-related validity, and (confirmatory) factor analysis, all reported a high level of measurability to consider the A-PLSI a valid instrument for assessing PLD in school settings and diagnosing PLI in clinical settings. Second, the A-PLSI provided empirical evidence by identifying children with and without PLI, documenting their progress on pragmatic language ability, and distinguishing between preschool children in school and clinical settings. In addition, the A-PLSI approved the typical norm that the older the children, the higher their level of PLD: the data showed higher performance for children aged 6–7 compared to the lower PLD level of children aged 4–5. Conclusion: The present study contributes to the existing literature on PLD assessment in a school setting and PLI diagnosis in a clinical setting. More importantly, it adds a new validated tool to the few available instruments in Arabic to assess PLD and diagnose PLI in Arabian contexts

A Study on the Relationship between Pragmatic Language Development and Socioeconomic Status in Arab Preschoolers with and without Pragmatic Language Impairment

The scope of this study is threefold. First, it examines socioeconomic status (SES) and pragmatic language development (PLD), hypothesizing that parental education and employment levels are mediators, where SES affects PLD mainly through its influence on parental education and employment levels. Second, we used quantitative (age) and qualitative (gender) variables as moderators, hypothesizing that gender and age moderate the relationship between classroom interaction (CI), social interaction (SI), and personal interaction (PI) skills and level of PLD. Third, characteristics of PLD in preschoolers with and without pragmatic language impairment (PLI) are compared. The Arabic Pragmatic Language Skills Inventory (A-PLSI) was administered by preschool teachers and speech-language pathologists in Saudi Arabia to 264 preschoolers with and without neurodevelopmental disorders to assess their PLD. Additionally, the SES of the parents of the same number of participants was surveyed. Results show that the more CI, SI, and PI a preschool child has, the greater the likelihood of typical PLD, regardless of the parents’ employment or education. Further, we obtained evidence that CI, SI, and PI all grow together with age. However, these three elements (namely, CI, SI, and PI) do not seem to be moderated or altered by gender. Typical PLD may be attainable when preschool children demonstrate typical mental and physical development, in contrast to children with psychiatric histories who display atypical PLD. These findings suggest that preschool children with more CI, SI, and PI will exhibit more typical PLD. The achievement of this goal results in a sustainable society for children

Competing views on interventions for pragmatic language skills in persons with pragmatic language impairment: An umbrella review

his umbrella review aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of pragmatic language interventions and existing competing views in improving pragmatic language skills in persons with pragmatic language impairment (PLI). A comprehensive search was conducted to identify qualitative and quantitative systematic reviews that included diagnostic criteria, features, development and course, risk and prognostic factors, differential diagnosis of PLI, and existing interventions, views, and arguments to improve the pragmatic language abilities/skills of persons with PLI. Syntheses were critically appraised by two independent reviewers using the JBI Critical Appraisal Checklist for Systematic Reviews and Research Syntheses. This umbrella review was registered with PROSPERO on 9th December 2022 under the registration number CRD42022378690. Out of 3,609 studies, 42 reviews were included in this umbrella review. The extracted findings were categorized based on theoretical intervention perspectives, which included behavioral, social-pragmatic, and cognitive-linguistic approaches. The studies revealed that pragmatic language interventions had a positive impact on improving pragmatic language skills in persons with PLI. However, competing views on pragmatic language interventions were also identified, suggesting the need for a more comprehensive approach that includes both behavioral and cognitive-linguistic components. In conclusion, cognitive-linguistic approach was the most documented intervention method, and suiting intervention methods to the complex nature of PLI is crucial. The documented intervention methods reflected competing views on the nature of PLI, highlighting the need for tailored interventions