The Effectiveness of a Blended Strategy based on Concept Mapping and Text Structure in Enhancing EFL Learners’ Writing Performance

The current study investigated the effect of a blended strategy based on concept mapping and text structure on EFL learners’ writing performance. An intact group (N = 42) of seventh level English majors at Thadiq Sciences and Humanities College, Shaqra University, KSA participated in the study in the first semester of the academic year 2016-2017. They were assigned to an experimental group and a control group, each consisting of 21 students. A writing pretest was administered to the two groups and scored by two raters using the Weir’s TEEP attribute writing scale (1990). An independent samples t-test performed on the pretest mean scores of the two groups showed that they were homogenous prior to the experiment. Concept mapping and text formatting (the proposed blended strategy) were integrated in the Advanced Writing course (Eng 413) for experimental group students. The control group received conventional instruction that did not include the proposed strategy. Independent and paired samples t-tests revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control group in all the sub-scales of Weir’s TEEP attribute writing scale, hence supporting the positive effect of concept mapping and text formatting on EFL learners’ writing performance. Pedagogical implications are offered

Informal Cairo: Between Islamist Insurgency & the Neglectful State?

From the late 1980s, Islamist militants established a ‘state within the state’ in the Egyptian capital Cairo, situated in ‘informal’ neighbourhoods developed without official authorization, planning or public services. After government security forces in late 1992 crushed these efforts in the neighbourhood of Munira Gharbiyya, informal Cairo became pathologized in public discourse as ashwa’iyyat (‘random’ or ‘haphazard’ areas), a zone of socio-spatial disorder threatening Egypt as a whole and demanding state intervention. However, this securitizing move did not lead to heavy-handed intervention against informal Cairo more generally. Following the suppression of the militants, the Mubarak government instead returned to long-term patterns of indifference and neglect that had allowed informal neighbourhoods to flourish since the 1960s. In part, the absence of intervention can be explained in terms of resource constraints and risk avoidance. More profoundly, however, it reflects numerous linkages between informal urbanization and the Egyptian state. The ashwa’iyyat are, to a significant degree, both a consequence of an authoritarian political order and embedded in the informal control stratagems used by Egyptian governments to bolster their rule. Informal Cairo should thus not be understood as a disorderly zone of subaltern dissidence. Rather, the Egyptian state is best seen as facing its own oblique reflection

Aspects of urinary tract infections and antimicrobial resistance in hospitalized urology patients in Asia: 10-Year results of the Global Prevalence Study of Infections in Urology (GPIU)

10.1016/j.jiac.2017.11.013Journal of Infection and Chemotherapy244278-283JICH

Aromatic Plants: use and nutraceutical properties

In the last years it has progressively been observed a substantial increase in the use of aromatic herbs and essential oils. Mediterranean area represents a particular environment in which many constraint factors (high light, temperature, drought, salinity, air pollution, etc.) induce a wide range of secondary metabolites in plants. These compounds can be useful utilized by humans for different applications: antibiotics, antimycotic, animal nutrition, cosmetics, food additives, biorepellents, etc. This paper reviews the literature on recent agro-industrial applications of Mediterranean plant species and medicinal plants used for the treatment of infectious diseases. The review includes accounts of extracts, essential oils and other active principles isolated from plants that have been used by folk medicine as antimicrobial agents. The name and part of the studied plants, spectrum of activity, type of active compounds and methods used are discussed and their mechanisms of action as well