Acceptance and usage of webcasting among users of selected cyber cafes in Klang Valley

The Malaysian public now has access to the Internet not only at home and the workplace, but also at cyber cafés. This study aims to examine the level of acceptance of webcasting among users of selected cyber cafés in the Klang Valley. The specific objectives of the study are: to determine the profile of webcasting users and its usage; to determine the types of webcasting technology most frequently used, level of knowledge of webcasting and the main source of knowledge in becoming aware of webcasting; to determine the acceptance of webcasting among non-users of webcasting; and to determine the relationship between behavioral intention to use and the actual usage of webcasting among users of webcasting. This study used the survey design, using purposive sampling to select the cyber cafés and visitors of these cafés. The findings indicate that usage of webcasting is still relatively low among users of selected cyber cafés in the Klang Valley. Users of webcasting were found to be mostly male, young and relatively well educated with at least a diploma as the highest level of education obtained

Hashtag Endsars as Political Activism in Nigeria: On Doing Christian Theology in an Age of Anxiety and Terror

This article reflects the serious agony of Nigerians which was demonstrated from the year 2020 as the Endsars protest Three years now yet the surging problems of systemic injustices against the poor people of Nigeria have not been solved or adjusted to the right sense of justice In the midst of the Endsars protests in Nigeria I wrote a short sentence to friends on face book showing my optimism even in the midst of the chaos we see around us that this Endsars protest for me is the birth pangs of Nigeria in the process of giving birth to a new Nigeria with a human face a new nation that would rise to the needs and voices of its citizens Now using an advocacy method of voicing the frustration and agonies of the voiceless within liberation theology discourse I present this article as an advocacy for justice as key to human dignity which will be made possible only in the living hope for true justice in and through Jesus Christ Thus in this essay I present my argument of the sociopolical struggles of Nigeria among many other nations of the world for the birth of a new social and political order of human rights and dignity for all In this essay the idea of political theology has been discussed in the midst of the social history of the rise and use of social media for political activism It recognizes the dangers and terrors of our time and also articulates the hope that we have in the person of Jesus Christ in this world Thus Nigeria is open to new face of hope and political theology that hears the voices of those who mourn and cry for justice and for the coming of God to heal and restor

Memanfaatkan teknologi maklumat dan komunikasi (ICT) untuk semua

Kehadiran pelbagai teknologi maklumat dan komunikasi (ICT) telah mengubah cara manusia berkomunikasi, bekerja, berdagang, dan melakukan aktiviti harian. Menyedari betapa pentingnya pengetahuan dan kemahiran ICT, pihak kerajaan dan swasta telah menyediakan kemudahan di pusat ICT untuk orang ramai mendapatkan pendedahan, pengetahuan, dan perkhidmatan yang berkaitan. Oleh yang demikian, anggota masyarakat perlu memanfaatkan kemudahan ICT yang ada di tempat masing-masing untuk mendapatkan pengetahuan dan kemahiran demi untuk pemajuan diri, keluarga dan masyarakat. Untuk memastikan anggota masyarakat dapat melakukan yang terbaik untuk memanfaatkan ICT, maka sejarah perkembangan ICT akan dibincangkan dan diikuti dengan senarai sumber ICT yang terdapat di negara ini yang dapat digunakan oleh anggota masyarakat. Ini disusuli dengan perbincangan tentang peranan ICT terhadap masyarakat yang memberi gambaran betapa pentingnya ICT dan sumbangannya terhadap anggota masyarakat. Beberapa usaha yang dilaksanakan oleh pihak kerajaan dan swasta untuk orang ramai memanfaatkan ICT turut dipaparkan supaya maklumat ini memberi gambaran betapa komitednya pihak berkaitan menjayakan hasrat ini. Untuk memastikan usaha untuk memanfaatkan ICT dapat dilakukan dengan berkesan, maka beberapa penyelidikan berkaitan penggunaan ICT dalam kalangan anggota masyarakat telah diutarakan. Antara hasil kajian yang diberi penekanan adalah kesan positif penggunaan komputer dalam kalangan penduduk luar bandar, dan peningkatan pengetahuan serta kemahiran penggunaan komputer dalam kalangan mereka yang telah mengikuti program latihan yang dianjurkan oleh pusat ICT di tempat mereka. Lantaran itu, beberapa strategi untuk memanfaatkan ICT di peringkat individu, keluarga, dan masyarakat turut dicadangkan. Sungguhpun demikian, peranan dan tanggungjawab pihak kerajaan dalam menyediakan kemudahan fizikal, prasarana, galakan, serta polisi yang menggalakan penggunaan ICT termasuk Internet tidak boleh dipandang ringan. Usaha pihak kerajaan menyediakan kemudahan dan akses Internet supaya anggota masyarakat dapat memanfaatkan ICT secara optimum, akan dapat dikecapi sekiranya mereka melepasi cabaran dalaman dan cabaran luaran yang sedia ada pada diri masing-masing, yang ada pada keluarga, dan yang ada pada komuniti berkenaan

Selecting Media for Knowledge Transfer: Experience from the Field

This study examines the ways in which staff of communication units in agricultural development agencies select media to transfer knowledge to their clients. A survey for data collection was conducted and 95 staff of communication units from 11 development agencies were asked to respond to self administered questionnaires. Most of the questions were open-ended and ratings of items for frequency and applicability were on a scale of 1 to 7 . The study revealed that the respondents regarded actual objects or realia best in knowledge transfer activities, followed by media that convey a high degree of fidelity. The respondents also indicated that media for instruction are somewhat different from media for campaigns. The selection elements considered important in the media selection process were audience characteristics, followed by purpose of communication, audience's media preference, and time given to prepare the media

The Nature of Ambiguity across Languages

Ambiguity is a universal phenomenon in processing natural language which is present at phonological, lexical, and grammatical linguistic levels in languages in general and in Arabic and English in particular. A breakdown of communication may take place because of the different interpretations of ambiguous sentences. This paper investigates the interpretations of some Arabic ambiguous sentences in relation to their linguistic content of both English and Arabic languages and it is also an attempt to trace the common ambiguous patterns. It is hypothesized that similar structures of ambiguous sentences may have serious consequences in the intercultural communication. This paper examines Arabic sentences with lexical and structural ambiguity in order to know exactly how the speakers[1] understand these sentences. It is also an attempt to idealize the pragmatic functions of these sentences. Results are evident that factors causing ambiguity are shared among languages, and ambiguity is transferable[2].   [1] of both Arabic and English [2] Arabic and English in this cas

Consumer Health Information Needs, Seeking and Searching Behavior By Rural Residents in the Kachia Grazing Reserve, with a Focus on Vector-borne Diseases

Information is considered the basic material for making decisions. People from all walks of life have information needs for business and personal use. Consumer Health Information (CHI) is an emerging form of information made accessible to the layperson. It is a simplified form of information from the types of information available to medical professionals. This study examines the health information behavior of the residents of one region in the Kachia Grazing Reserve (KGR) located in the North West of the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. This dissertation explores the health information needs, seeking and searching behavior of the residents of selected communities that are affected by two vector-borne fly diseases in Nigeria. Insects such as flies are responsible for the transmission of diseases to humans, including trypanosomiasis, caused by the tsetse fly, and malaria, caused by mosquitos. These flies are commonly found in and affect mostly rural dwellers in Nigeria. This study investigates some of the broader contextual issues that may influence consumer health care needs as well as seeking-searching behavior. It asks participants whether they believe their health information needs are being met or not. The study applied a qualitative approach to sampling 50 adult participants. It relied on a triangulation data collection method using a questionnaire, interview instrument, and focus group discussion. NVivo version 12 was used in the data analysis to create a coding scheme following the stages of open, axial, and selective coding processes to develop a grounded theory of rural residents’ information behaviors. The findings of the research revealed various health information needs and seeking behavior the rural residents engaged in; it also revealed the factors that influenced their seeking and searching activities. Furthermore, the findings highlighted the information sources they used and the problems associated with the information-seeking and searching process. The model that was inductively derived from the grounded theory data analysis explains further in detail the strategies and processes members of the community use in their health information-seeking and health-searching behavior

Anti-Inflammatory Activity of Crude Saponin Extracts from Five Nigerian Medicinal Plants

Crude saponin extracts of five medicinal plants used in the treatment of inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, gout and haemorrhoids were screened for anti-inflammatory activity using carrageenan-induced rat paw oedema test. These plants were the whole plant of Schwenkia americana Linn (WSA), the rhizomes of Asparagus africanus Lam (RAA), the leaves of Dichrostachys cinerea Linn (LDC), the stem bark of Ficus iteophylla Miq (BFI) and the leaves of Indigofera pulchra Willd (LIP). A modify traditional method of crude saponins extraction was used to give the following percentage yields: WSA-2.74%, RAA-3.59%, LDC-1.62%, BFI-0.81% and LIP-1.57% respectively. Thin-layer chromatography was used to identify the type of saponins present in the extracts. The acute toxicity study of the crude saponin extracts in mice gave the following intraperitoneal LD50: WSA-471.2mg/kg, RAA- 1264.9mg/kg, LDC-1264.9mg/kg, BFI-118.3mg/kg and LIP-1264.9mg/kg respectively.  The antiinflammatory study of the extracts showed statistically significant (P<0.05) decreases in the rat paw-oedema as compared to the control. The percentage inhibitions of the extracts after four hours were as follow: WSA-61%, RAA-55%, LDC-72%, BFI-66% and LIP-40% respectively. These values were found to be comparable to that of ketoprofen-63%. The study showed that the antiinflammatory properties attributable to these plants may be due to their saponins contents.Keywords: - Asparagus africanus, Dichrostachys cinerea, Ficus iteophylla, Indigofera pulchra, Schwenkia americana, Saponin,Anti-inflammatory activity, Carrageenan, TLC

Assessing Sudanese EFL Secondary School Students’ Syntactic and Semantic Knowledge in Utilizing English Connective- words

       Writing has been one of the most problematic language skill for the most Sudanese EFL Secondary School students; this is may be due to the fact that effective communication, depends to a large extent on the ability to construct a cohesive and coherent text by knowing how to utilize discourse connectives, which are considered one major linguistic devices of clarifying, identifying interrelationships, and encoding cohesive and coherent discourse. The purpose of this study is to investigate how Sudanese EFL Secondary School students use English discourse connectives appropriately for their communicative needs. The data were taken from EFL Sudanese Secondary School students’ written discourse at Wad Medani Secondary School for Boys in Greater Wad Medani Locality, Gezira State- Sudan. The aim is to analyze how well EFL Sudanese students at Secondary level produce logical connectors in accordance with their semantic cohesive functions they fulfill, and to sensitize Sudanese EFL students at Secondary level to the different types of English discourse connectives in order to write a well-organized  written discourse. In addition, to test how Sudanese EFL Secondary School students understand the functions of the different kinds of connective words, and the meaning relationships signaled by these connective words. The functions of these connectors were classified according to the model of Halliday and Hasan. The model of classification and the quantitative analysis of the study subjects’ data were presented together with the results revealed from grading of a taken sample (n=30).  The findings revealed that Sudanese EFL Secondary School students encounter difficulties in the use of a variety of additive, adversative, temporal, and causal connective words; since their frequencies of incorrect responses is (2180 instances, i.e. 56%), which is more than that of correct responses (1706 instances, i.e. 44%). Thus, the findings of this study would be beneficial and advantageous for both language learners and language teachers. The study recommended that in order to comprehend better discourse connectives syntactic and semantic rules, Sudanese EFL  Secondary School students may need be exposed to a higher degree of English connectives and assigning the students a lot of reading and writing assigments

The order of Cardinal, ordinal and multiplicative Adjectives in English and Arabic: A comparative study

It is noticed that Arabic speakers of English and English speaker of Arabic encounter some difficulty in the order of the adjectives especially when there are numerals. This study aims to compare and contrast the construction, behaviour and order of the different types of numeral adjectives among the other adjectives in the languages in question. In order to achieve the objectives of the study and find out answers to the questions under investigation, the study follows the prescriptive method. It examines analytically the similarities and differences in order to find out what is linguistic specific for Arabic and for English with regard to the order of numerals and other adjectives. It is hoped that the study will contribute in enriching the morpho-syntactic field and computational linguistics. Definitions, structures and current examples including numerals and other adjectives in English and in Arabic are presented and analysed structurally. The data are compared and contrasted in order to find out reasons behind the problems and difficulties that face Arabic and English speakers in the order of numeral and other adjectives. Results and recommendations will set the remedies needed for these major challenges towards the perfection of the linguistic knowledge.PSAU-2022/02/19983 Deanship of Scientific Research at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz Universit