172 research outputs found

    Business Education in the World Islamic Sciences &Education University and Jordan University - a Case Study from the Arab World

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    Following an introduction to the Middle Eastern nation in its context is a map showing the location and distribution of major universities. The aim is to outline the Jordanian business education system in general then contrast a public and private university to illustrate the system. Findings show public universities are more than twice as overcrowded as private and there is generally a high unemployment rate for university graduates particularly in humanity fields and for women. However business education has about one quarter of graduates not officially accounted for in available employment figures. Ten to 15% of students in business faculties are from outside Jordan, demonstrating the importance of education as an income source for this poor nation otherwise lacking natural resources. However the downside of 20% of GDP invested in educational provision is the more than 20% graduate brain drain to the neighbouring nations and abroad. To conclude, tertiary problems are summarised together with resulting challenges, Ministry strategic plans and recommendations. Keywords : Jordan , WISE , Jordan university , Business Education , Arab worl

    Using Deep Learning Networks to Predict Telecom Company Customer Satisfaction Based on Arabic Tweets

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    Information systems are transforming businesses, which are using modern technologies towards new business models based on digital solutions, which ultimately lead to the design of novel socio-economic systems. Sentiment analysis is, in this context, a thriving research area. This paper is a case study of Saudi telecommunications (telecom) companies, using sentiment analysis for customer satisfaction based on a corpus of Arabic tweets. This paper compares, for the first time for Saudi social media in telecommunication, the most popular machine learning approach, support vector machine (SVM), with two deep learning approaches: long short-term memory (LSTM) and gated recurrent unit (GRU). This study used LSTM and GRU with two different implementations, adding attention mechanism and character encoding. The study concluded that the bidirectional-GRU with attention mechanism achieved a better performance in the telecommunication domain and allowed detection of customer satisfaction in the telecommunication domain with high accuracy

    Unraveling the impact of cysteine-to-serine mutations on the structural and functional properties of Cu(I)-binding proteins

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    Appropriate maintenance of Cu(I) homeostasis is an essential requirement for proper cell function because its misregulation induces the onset of major human diseases and mortality. For this reason, several research efforts have been devoted to dissecting the inner working mechanism of Cu(I)-binding proteins and transporters. A commonly adopted strategy relies on mutations of cysteine residues, for which Cu(I) has an exquisite complementarity, to serines. Nevertheless, in spite of the similarity between these two amino acids, the structural and functional impact of serine mutations on Cu(I)-binding biomolecules remains unclear. Here, we applied various biochemical and biophysical methods, together with all-atom simulations, to investigate the effect of these mutations on the stability, structure, and aggregation propensity of Cu(I)-binding proteins, as well as their interaction with specific partner proteins. Among Cu(I)-binding biomolecules, we focused on the eukaryotic Atox1-ATP7B system, and the prokaryotic CueR metalloregulator. Our results reveal that proteins containing cysteine-to-serine mutations can still bind Cu(I) ions; however, this alters their stability and aggregation propensity. These results contribute to deciphering the critical biological principles underlying the regulatory mechanism of the in-cell Cu(I) concentration, and provide a basis for interpreting future studies that will take advantage of cysteine-to-serine mutations in Cu(I)-binding systems

    Work–Life-Balance Policies for Women and Men in an Islamic Culture: A Culture-Centred and Religious Research Perspective

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    This paper aims to explore the nature of Work–Life Balance (WLB) policies offered within a developing country (Gaza; Palestine) by two telecommunication companies. Firstly, the cultural context is described, in which two semi-public companies have developed a particular set of family-friendly policies, which have attempted to serve the needs of employees of a country enduring blockade and bombardment. Then, ideas are developed exploring why the adoption of Work–Life Balance (WLB) policies in these organisations may have taken a particular pathway. Using the value assumptions of an Islamically informed critical realist approach, qualitative studies have been undertaken in which 20 managers and 42 employees (one third female) have been interviewed in two semi-public companies during a time of turbulence (2015 to 2021) in the political economy of Gaza. These interviews have been subjected to systematic qualitative analysis and interpreted from the methodologies of critical realism and auto-ethnography. The reasons for the provision of WLB benefits identified by respondents were often different in kind and degree from those found in studies in Western countries. These assumed reasons also differed between managers and professional employees. Generally, WLB benefits supported women in an Islamic and Arabic culture in ways which were resonant with cultural settings, but which also reflected local political and union pressures, government regulations, and international influences. The reasons for the provision of WLB benefits identified by respondents were often different in kind and degree from those found in studies in Western countries. These reasons also differed between managers and professional employees. Generally, WLB benefits supported women in an Islamic and Arabic culture in ways which were resonant with cultural and religious settings. This study, the first of its kind in a Muslim, Arabic culture deserves replication with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies

    Load Balancing Objective Function in RPL draft-qasem-roll-rpl-load-balancing-00

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    This document proposes an extended Objective Function(OF) that balances the number of children nodes of the parent nodes to avoid the overloading problem and ensure node lifetime maximization in the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). The standard OFs are used to build a Destination Oriented Directed Acyclic Graph (DODAG) where the bottleneck nodes may suffer from unbalanced traffic load. As a result, a part of the network may be disconnected as the energy of the overloaded preferred parent node will drain much faster than other candidate parents. Thus, a new RPL metric has been introduced to balance the traffic load over the network. The potential extra overhead has been mitigated using a new utilization technique. Finally, the proposed OF amends the DODAG Information Object (DIO) message format. Status of this Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted to IETF in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79

    Asymmetric triplex metallohelices with high and selective activity against cancer cells

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    Small cationic amphiphilic α-helical peptides are emerging as agents for the treatment of cancer and infection, but they are costly and display unfavourable pharmacokinetics. Helical coordination complexes may offer a three-dimensional scaffold for the synthesis of mimetic architectures. However, the high symmetry and modest functionality of current systems offer little scope to tailor the structure to interact with specific biomolecular targets, or to create libraries for phenotypic screens. Here, we report the highly stereoselective asymmetric self-assembly of very stable, functionalized metallohelices. Their anti-parallel head-to-head-to-tail ‘triplex’ strand arrangement creates an amphipathic functional topology akin to that of the active sub-units of, for example, host-defence peptides and ​p53. The metallohelices display high, structure-dependent toxicity to the human colon carcinoma cell-line HCT116 ​p53++, causing dramatic changes in the cell cycle without DNA damage. They have lower toxicity to human breast adenocarcinoma cells (MDA-MB-468) and, most remarkably, they show no significant toxicity to the bacteria methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. At a glanc

    Recuperação de área degradada com sistema agroflorestal no Vale do Rio Doce, Minas Gerais.

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    O Vale do Rio Doce, MG, apresenta um histórico de ocupação e uso do solo que favorece a degradação ambiental, em que predominam pastagens sob o uso constante de queimadas. Os sistemas agroflorestais têm se mostrado eficientes na recuperação de áreas degradadas. Neste estudo foram avaliados os efeitos de um sistema agroflorestal na recuperação do solo em área degradada por pastagem na comunidade de Ilha Funda,Município de Periquito, Minas Gerais. A implantação do sistema se deu em 1994 e está sendo conduzido segundo os princípios agroecológicos, potencializando a regeneração natural e a sucessão de espécies. Em 1998, foram coletadas amostras de solo na área em recuperação e em duas áreas adjacentes: uma área degradada, que se encontrava em condições semelhantes às da área em recuperação no início do processo, e outra ocupada por pastagem. Foram determinados atributos químicos do solo e realizada a caracterização da matéria orgânica. O solo da área em recuperação com sistema agroflorestal mostrou-se em melhores condições do que o solo sob pastagem e o da área degradada, apresentando maior dinâmica do carbono orgânico e maior disponibilidade de nutrientes. Embora o teor de carbono orgânico total apresentado pelo solo sob pastagem tenha sido maior que nas demais condições avaliadas, o solo do sistema agroflorestal já está se igualando ao da pastagem no acúmulo das formas mais estáveis de carbono e apresentando maior dinâmica das frações orgânicas menos estáveis. Este estudo comprovou a eficiência dos sistemas agroflorestais, conduzidos segundo os princípios agroecológicos, na recuperação de áreas degradadas
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