AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CURRENT MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING PRACTICES AND THE CONTINGENT ASPECTS THAT HAVE PROMPTED SAUDI AND NON-SAUDI MANUFACTURING FIRMS TO ADOPT OR NOT ADOPT MODERN MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS: THE CASE OF THE EASTERN PROVINCE OF SAUDI ARABIA

This research has investigated the current application of management accounting practices in Saudi and non-Saudi manufacturing firms that operate in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, and the internal and external contingent aspects that prompted these firms to adopt or not to adopt advanced management accounting practices. In order to achieve the aforementioned aims, a mixed methodology was used, with a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews being used as instruments for collecting the required data. Three types of statistical analysis were used (descriptive, bivariate and multivariate) to analyse the data obtained from the returned questionnaires (158 out of 260). Analysis of the descriptive parts of the questionnaires has shown that Saudi and non-Saudi manufacturing firms are still loyal to their traditional management accounting practices, such as the extensive use of one accounting system for several purposes, traditional allocation methods, traditional decision-making tools, standard costing systems, traditional budgeting, and traditional financial measures. At the same time, the analysis has shown that there is slow move toward adopting new trends in management accounting among these firms, mainly due to satisfaction with traditional management accounting practices and a lack of relevant skill regarding the advanced management accounting practices. The bivariate results have shown that adoption of advanced management accounting practices by Saudi and non-Saudi manufacturing firms is subject to certain contingent aspects, such as perceived environmental uncertainty, competition, size and firm strategy, but not product range or number. The same statistical test has shown that there is a partial relationship between the extent of adoption of advanced management accounting practices, culture, and advanced manufacturing technologies. The results of the multivariate test have shown that adoption of advanced management accounting practices by Saudi and non-Saudi manufacturing firms is related to only three predictors, which are size, number of products, and prospector strategy. Theoretical analysis of the interviews has revealed that adoption of advanced management accounting practices is due to perceived environmental uncertainty, price and quality competition, size, number of products, culture, and firm strategy, but not advanced manufacturing technology. Also, analysis of the interviews has confirmed the descriptive finding regarding the heavy use of traditional management accounting practices. The research concludes by emphasising that the case of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia follows the mainstream in regards to the limited acceptance of advanced management accounting practices and the fact that adoption of these practices is due to certain internal and external contingent drivers

Satellite TVRO system reception under tropical weather conditions effects

TVRO systems suffers from the tropical weather conditions effects. This paper evaluate the system based on its effects of that conditions. This paper presents a Satellite TVRO system reception with regard to various weather conditions effects such as day time, night time as well as clear sky and rain sky conditions have been highlighted. The Geo arc that has been derived from such system represent the application of TVRO. The TVRO structures a Geo-arc formation and formulation in terms of satellite signals losses

Post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage after bipolar diathermy vs. cold dissection surgical techniques in Alahsa region, Saudi Arabia

Introduction: Tonsillectomy is a common surgical procedure done by  totolaryngologists. Tonsillectomy is a relatively simple procedure. The concept of implementing it as a day case operation has become increasingly popular.Material and Methods: This is a cross sectional study done in Alahsa city, eastern province, Saudi Arabia during the period from January 2014 to March 2015,This study reported the postoperative hemorrhage after Bipolar diathermy and Cold dissection surgical techniques to evaluate the incidence of the hemorrhage and to identify the possible risk factors associated with its occurrence.Results: Postoperative bleeding occurred in 45 (3.6%) out of 1232 patients. Post-tonsillectomy hemorrhage according to operation technique was significantly higher among patients who underwent bipolar diathermy than cold dissection technique (p< 0.05).Conclusion: Bleeding after operation by bipolar diathermy technique was occurring more frequently within the first five days. Hemoglobin level was significantly decreased in posttonsillectomy hemorrhage

Genetic variability and interrelationships of grain yield and its components of irrigated rice in Gezira

Nineteen genotypes of irrigated rice were evaluated at the Gezira Research Station Farm, Wad Medani, Sudan, for two consecutive seasons (2004 and 2005) in a randomized complete block design with three replicates. This study was conducted to estimate the genotypic and phenotypic variability, broad sense heritability and traits correlation with grain yield. The highest genotypic coefficient of variation and genetic advance were recorded for plant height and number of panicles/m2, and the lowest for number of tillers/plant, days to 50% flowering, days to 50% maturity and panicle length, in both seasons. High heritability estimates (>80%) were recorded for plant height, days to 50% flowering, days to 50% maturity and 1000-grain weight. The highest estimate of heritability combined with the highest genetic advance as percentage of the mean was shown by plant height and 1000-grain weight, in both seasons. The high yielding genotypes were WITA5 (TOX 3255-82-1-3-2), IRI 3240-108-2-2-3(SAHEL.108)(FKR44) and TOX 3081-36-2-2-3-1. Their grain yields were 4.9, 4.9 and 4.6 t/ha, respectively. Grain yield/ha was significantly and negatively correlated with the percentage of unfilled grains/panicle, plant height and days to 50% flowering. How-ever, it was significantly and positively correlated with number of tillers/ plant, number of panicles/m2, number of filled grains/panicle and 1000-grain weight, in both seasons. Path coefficient analysis indicated that number of filled grains/panicle, 1000-grain weight and number of panicles / m2 were the most directly related traits to grain yield/ha

A stochastic joint model for longitudinal and survival data with cure patients

Many medical investigations generate both repeatedly-measured (longitudinal) biomarker and survival data. One of complex issues arises when investigating the association between longitudinal and time-to-event data when there are cured patients in the population, which leads to a plateau in the survival function S(t) after sufficient follow-up. Thus, usual Cox proportional hazard model Cox (1972) is not applicable since the proportional hazard assumption is violated. An alternative is to consider survival models incorporating a cure fraction. In this paper we present a new class of joint model for univariate longitudinal and survival data in presence of cure fraction. For the longitudinal model, a stochastic Integrated Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process will be presented. For the survival model a semiparametric survival function will be considered which accommodate both zero and non-zero cure fractions of the dynamic disease progression. Moreover, we consider a Bayesian approach which is motivated by the complexity of the model. Posterior and prior specification needs to accommodate parameter constraints due to the nonnegativity of the survival function. A simulation study is presented to evaluate the performance of this joint model

Fifth Generation (5G) New Radio (NR) Channel Codes Contenders Based on Field- Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA): A Review Paper

ان الحاجة المتزايدة على الجودة، مثل السرعة العالية والتاخير المنخفض والتغطية الواسعة واستهلاك الطاقة والتكلفة والاتصالات الموثوقة في خدمات الهاتف المحمول والوسائط المتعددة ونقل البيانات تفرض استخدام المتطلبات التقنية المتقدمة في الجيل الخامس (5G) الإذاعة الجديدة (NR). واحدة من أهم الأجزاء في الطبقة المادية للجيل الجديد هي تقنية الترميز لتصحيح الأخطاء. هنالك ثلاثة اشكال مقترحة لتقنيات الترميز المخصصة لقنوات نقل البيانات وقنوات التحكم هي  الترميز التوربيني وفحص التكافؤ المنخفض الكثافة (LDPC) والرموز القطبية. يتم تقييم المنافسة بين هذه الانواع من حيث القدرة على تصحيح الأخطاء والتعقيد الحسابي والمرونة. التوازي والمرونة وسرعة المعالجة العالية لمصفوفة البوابة القابلة للبرمجة الميدانية (FPGA) تجعلها أفضل في النماذج الأولية وتنفيذ الرموز المختلفة. تقدم هذه الورقة دراسة استقصائية للبحوث الحالية التي تتعامل مع تصميم وحدة فك الترميز المستندة إلى FPGA المرتبطة برموز القناة المذكورة سابقًا.The increased demands for quality, like high throughput, low-latency, wide coverage, energy consumption, cost and reliable connections in mobile services, multimedia and data transmission impose the use of advance technical requirements for the next fifth-generation (5G) new radio (NR). One of the most crucial parts in the physical layer of the new generation is the error correction coding technique. Three schemes, namely; Turbo, low density parity check (LDPC), and polar codes are potentially ‎considered as the candidate codes for both data and control channels. The competition is evaluated in terms of error correction capability, computational complexity, and flexibility. The parallelism, flexibility and high processing speed of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) make it preferable in prototyping and implementation of different codes. This paper presents a survey on the current literatures that deals with FPGA-based decoder design associated with the previously mentioned channel codes

A Semiparametric Joint Model for Longitudinal and Time-to- Event Univariate Data in Presence of Cure Fraction

Many medical investigations generate both repeatedly-measured (longitudinal)biomarker and survival data. One of complex issue arises when investigating the association between longitudinal and time-to-event data when there are cured patients in the population, which leads to a plateau in the survival function S(t) after sufficient follow-up. Thus, usual Cox proportional hazard model Cox (1972) is not applicable since the proportional hazard assumption is violated. An alternative is to consider survival models incorporating a cure fraction. In this paper we present a new class of joint model for univariate longitudinal and survival data in presence of cure fraction. For the longitudinal model, a stochastic Integrated Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process will present, and for the survival model a semiparametric survival function will be considered which accommodate both zero and non-zero cure fractions of the dynamic disease progression. Moreover, we consider a Bayesian approach which is motivated by the complexity of the model. Posterior and prior specification needs to accommodate parameter constraints due to the nonnegativity of the survival function. A simulation study is presented to evaluate the performance of this joint model

Review: Recent Directions in ECG-FPGA Researches

لقد شهدت السنوات القليلة الماضية اهتماماً متزايداً نحو استخدام مصفوفة البوابات المنطقية القابلة للبرمجة FPGA في التطبيقات المختلفة. لقد أدى التقدم الحاصل في مرونة التعامل مع الموارد بالاضافة الى الزيادة في سرعة الاداء وانخفاض الثمن للـ FPGA وكذلك الاستهلاك القليل للطاقة الى هذا الاهتمام المتزايد بالـ FPGA. ان استخدام الـ FPGA في مجالات الطب والصحة يهدف بشكل عام الى استبدال اجهزة المراقبة الطبية كبيرة الحجم وغالية الثمن باخرى أصغر حجماً مع امكانية تصميمها لكي تكون اجهزة محمولة اعتماداً على مرونة التصميم التي يوفرها الـ FPGA. إنصب الاهتمام في العديد من البحوث الحالية على استخدام نظام FPGA لمعالجة الجوانب المتعلقة بإشارة تخطيط القلب وذلك لتوفير التحسينات في الاداء وزيادة السرعة بالاضافة الى أيجاد وإقتراح افكار جديدة لمثل هذه التطبيقات. ان هذا البحث يوفر نظرة عامة عن الاتجاهات الحالية في انظمة ECG-FPGA.The last few years witnessed an increased interest in utilizing field programmable gate array (FPGA) for a variety of applications. This utilizing derived mostly by the advances in the FPGA flexible resource configuration, increased speed, relatively low cost and low energy consumption. The introduction of FPGA in medicine and health care field aim generally to replace costly and usually bigger medical monitoring and diagnostic equipment with much smaller and possibly portable systems based on FPGA that make use of the design flexibility of FPGA. Many recent researches focus on FPGA systems to deal with the well-known yet very important electrocardiogram (ECG) signal aspects to provide acceleration and improvement in the performance as well as finding and proposing new ideas for such implementations. The recent directions in ECG-FPGA are introduced in this paper

Personalized Quantification of Facial Normality using Artificial Intelligence

While congenital facial deformities are not rare, and surgeons typically perform operations to improve these deformities, currently the success of the surgical reconstruction operations can only be “measured” subjectively by surgeons and specialists. No efficient objective mechanisms of comparing the outcomes of plastic reconstruction surgeries or the progress of different surgery techniques exist presently. The aim of this research project is to develop an efficient software application that can be used by plastic surgeons as an objective measurement tool for the success of an operation. The long-term vision is to develop a software application that is user-friendly and can be downloaded on a regular laptop and used by doctors and patients to assess the progress of their surgical reconstruction procedures. The application would work by first scanning a face before and after an operation and providing the surgeon with a normality score of the face from 0 to 3 where 3 represents normal and 0 represents extreme abnormality. A score will be given when the face is scanned before and after surgery. The difference between those scores is what we will call the delta. A high delta value would point to a high improvement in the normality of a face post-surgery, and a low delta value would indicate a small improvement. The first chapter of the thesis represents the introduction which describes the general aspects of the project. The second chapter presents the methodology employed for building the application and the existing solutions and proposed functional model structure. The results chapter presents the process behind collecting and labeling the image database and analyzes the scores produced by the program when fed with new images from the database. Finally, the last chapter of this thesis presents the conclusions. The list of references completes this work