The influence of board director's characteristics and ownership structure on intellectual capital disclosure among Gulf Cooperation Council companies

Intellectual capital (IC) disclosure, recognised as a highly useful element for maintaining competitive advantage, attracting global investment and adding immense value to the interests of key stakeholders has been presented as an international research direction, especially in the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) context. As such, this study addresses the key issue of examining voluntary disclosure of IC among top listed firms in the GCC countries. Specifically, it involves a thorough examination of 119 firms’ 2011 annual reports. Furthermore, it investigates whether the monitoring mechanisms of an effective board and audit committee, and ownership structures, influence IC disclosure. By using hierarchical regression, this study also estimates the moderating effect of the effectiveness of audit committees on the relationship between ownership (e.g. government, family, institutional) and IC disclosure. The multiple regression findings showed that the board size, board multiple directorships, board meeting, board committees and audit committee independence had a positive and significant relationship with IC disclosure when examined individually. However, when assessed at aggregate level using scores, it was found that the board effectiveness and family ownership had a significant relationship with IC disclosure in the GCC context. Additionally, this study provides evidence related to family and institutional ownership holding a majority of shares having a significant relationship with IC disclosure. Also, the results of this study showed that audit committee effectiveness moderates the relationship between the government ownership and IC disclosure. The result of this study contributes to the body of knowledge in IC-related studies, particularly with regards to monitoring mechanisms affecting IC disclosure. The findings will be beneficial to investors, regulators, policymakers and market participants as well as researchers

The Mediating Role of Job Satisfaction on the Effect of Emotional Intelligence of Nurses in Public Hospitals in Gaza Strip on Job Burnout

Service employees, particularly nurses need to be professional in dealing with clients and maintaining their emotion. Moreover, they should have a sufficient level of knowledge and experience in order to enhance the healthcare service without any damage in their emotion and the level of their job satisfaction. This study aims to examine the impact of emotional intelligence on job burnout mediated by job satisfaction. The research model has six constructs, which are: self-emotion appraisal, others’ emotion appraisal, use of emotion, regulation of emotion, job satisfaction and job burnout. Respondents in this study are nurses in public hospitals in Gaza strip. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. The sample size for this study is 450 respondents. The validity and reliability of scales will be examined using Average Variance Extracted (AVE), AVE square root, Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) measure of composite reliability and Cronbach’s alpha. The findings of this study will provide invaluable input to all healthcare providers in understanding the main role and importance of service employee’s emotion status in providing a superior service to patients in the unstable environment such as Gaza strip by managing his/her emotions during the interaction process with patients to avoid any damage in their emotion status. Keywords: Emotions, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, job burnout. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/13-12-08 Publication date:June 30th 202

Fragility and resilience of bridges subjected to extreme wave-induced forces

Bridges are susceptible to severe damage due to wave-induced forces during extreme events such as floods, hurricanes, storm surges and tsunamis. As a direct impact of climate change, the frequency and intensity of these events are also expected to increase in the future. The damages to bridges lead to substantial community impact during emergency and post-disaster recovery activities. Hence, viable restoration strategies are needed to enhance the resilience of bridges under extreme wave hazards. The research on the quantification of vulnerability and resilience of bridges under extreme wave forces is limited. In particular, vulnerability and resilience assessment tools for bridges under different hazard intensity levels are required to quantify the resilience. This research addresses these research needs by providing a comprehensive vulnerability assessment framework for bridges subjected to extreme hydrodynamic forces. A comprehensive literature review is first conducted on the four resilience assessment elements, namely external wave force characterization, structural response, vulnerability assessment and resilience quantification to identify the existing gaps in knowledge, particularly in vulnerability and assessment methods. Unified resilience indices, based on the "resilience triangle" concept, are proposed to take into account the effect of the consideration of resources (cost) and environmental impact and their relative importance to the decision makers in the resilience quantification. Such indices are important for stakeholders as they provide a linkage between the social (time), economic and environmental impacts in the assessment of restoration strategies. An integrated vulnerability assessment framework for bridges with strong connectivity between super- and sub-structure is proposed. The framework includes both static and time-history analyses to examine the performance of bridges subjected to significant hydrodynamic forces. The uncertainties in force and structural parameters are taken into account and the probability of damage is estimated using six damage states that define the pre- and post-peak response of bridge. The pier drift is taken as the engineering demand parameter. The use of two-parameter intensity measures that can provide an accurate estimation of the response of bridge such as momentum flux (hu2) and moment of momentum flux (h2u2/2) is investigated. To demonstrate the proposed framework, a numerical model is developed for a case study bridge located in a flood-prone region in Queensland, Australia. The accuracy of the piers model is validated using published works on small-scale pier specimens that have limited ductility. The effect of strengthening of bridge piers using fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) jackets is examined. The overall fragility functions for all intensity measures (velocity, inundation depth, momentum flux and moment of momentum flux) are obtained for both initial and strengthened bridge. The reduction in scatter of fragility data is examined for the two-parameter intensity measures for all damage states. The viability of the use of FRP jackets for enhancing the resilience of bridges under extreme wave forces is also evaluated. The application of unified resilience indices based on the damage probability data obtained from fragility analysis is discussed for different intensities of the hazard. The main contribution provided by this research is the comprehensive vulnerability and resilience assessment methods for bridges under extreme wave hazards. Such methodologies can assist in the evaluation of the different pre-disaster strengthening and recovery schemes for bridges. Decision makers (e.g., road authorities) can use the outcome of this research to assess the different retrofitting options for bridges taking into consideration the time, cost and energy consumption associated with each option

The State of Academic Research Advancement in Hospitality: A 5- Year Review From 2018 To 2022 of the Jordanian Universities

Scientific research in the field of hospitality occupies a distinguished position in various research aspects, as it constitutes an important proportion of scientific research related to management, especially business administration, as well as an important aspect of practical research related to social and human sciences. For this reason, this study is presented to track the development of scientific research in the field of hospitality in Jordan and the aspects it touched upon. A comprehensive systematic review approach of five years of hospitality-published research on google scholar was carried out by tracking the official website of scholars in Jordanian universities. A total of 73 hospitality-related articles on Google Scholar by Jordanian scholars at public universities over the past five years were collected and analyzed for this review. The results showed that there is an abundance of research products for the year 2021, that researchers at the University of Jordan are the most scientifically productive in hospitality research, and that most of the research interests were related to human resource management in the field of hospitality. This study provides an important theoretical contribution to guide future researchers to future issues of interest to the hospitality sector in Jordan that were not addressed by the researchers

Barriers in knowledge and attitudes regarding organ donation among Urban Jordanian population

Low organ donation rates are a major obstacle to the expansion of transplant opportunities in the Middle East. Awareness and opinion about organ donation affect willingness to donate. This study aims to evaluate public attitudes and knowledge about deceased organ donation (DOD) in Jordan in support of larger efforts to increase donor rates. A mixed qualitative and quantitative approach was used. Qualitative, one-on-one interviews were used to create a quantitative survey, which was administered to randomly-selected individuals over a 5-month period. The questionnaire used series of statements to evaluate knowledge and attitude about DOD on a scaling system and converted to scores (0-4). A total of 15 qualitative interviews and 500 quantitative surveys (78.4% response rate) were completed. Only 78 (15.6%) knew they could donate their organs after death. Only 49 (9.8%) were registered as donors, although 373 (74.6%) knew about the registration process. Internet (52.2%) and social media (51.0%) were the most common sources of information. The overall knowledge score was moderately high at 68.8% (2.75 ± 1.31). Misconceptions persisted about body disfigurement, diagnostic accuracy of brain-death, and waiting list equity. The total attitude score was moderately positive at 65.8% (2.63 ± 0.02). Public awareness campaigns (85.3%, 3.42 ± 0.95) and regulatory legislation (78.8%, 3.15 ± 0.99) were considered especially positive, while negative attitudes about religious approval and paid donation were present. Female respondents had significantly higher scores on organ donation significance (P = 0.007) and overall attitude (P = 0.035) than males. The results of this study demonstrate knowledge gaps, misconceptions, and negative opinions on topics related to organ donation in Jordan. However, participants recognized the importance of educational campaigns and regulatory legislation and would likely benefit from information from health-care providers and religious leaders

Crystal structures of pure 3-(4-bromo-2-chlorophenyl)-1-(pyridin-4-yl) benzo [4, 5] imidazo [1, 2-d][1, 2, 4] triazin-4 (3H)-one and contaminated with 3-(4-bromophenyl)-1 …

The side product of the cyclocondensation reaction between ethyl benzimidazole-2-carboxylate and the nitrile imine of the corresponding hydrazonyl chloride, C20H11BrClN5O, crystallized in two crystal forms. Form (1) is a co-crystal of the target compound (without any chlorine substituent) and a side product containing a Cl atom in position 2 of the bromophenyl group, C20H12BrN5O·0.143C20H11BrClN5O. (2) contains the pure side product. The slightly different conformation of the ring systems leads to a different packing of (1) and (2), but both crystal structures are dominated by π–π interactions

Nexus between Intellectual Capital and Financial Performance Sustainability: Evidence from Listed Jordanian Firms

Purpose: The authors observe the effect of exploring the reality of Intellectual Capital (IC) and its impact on the financial performance of Jordanian industrial firms in Amman Stock Exchange. This empirical research explores the effect of intellectual capital on financial performance using data from 36 Jordanian industrial firms listed in Amman Stock Exchange for the period 2016-2020. The Value-Added Intellectual coefficient (VAIC) was adopted to measure the intellectual capital, while the return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE), and earnings per share (EPS) were adopted as measures of the companys financial performance. The effect of IC was tested by using statistical analysis, dependent on the data obtained from annual financial statements. The results showed that the IC has a significant and positive effect on profitability due to its significant effect on ROA and EPS. However, it has not been proven that IC affects the ROE. This research extends the research on IC and aims to enrich studies in this field, especially in the Jordanian market. It reflects the reality of Intellectual Capital and its impact on industrial firms’ performance in Jordan as an example of developing countrie

Dye Sensitized Solar Cells Based on Hydrazonoyl Synthetic Dyes

A group of chemical sensitizers of two hydrazonoyl based derivatives were synthesized. These derivatives contain a good π system for efficient light absorption and oxide sensitization. Precursor structure I was reacted with 2,6-diaminopyridine, 2-aminobenzoic acid, 4-aminobenzoic acid, 2-aminopyridine, 2,6-dinitrophenylhydrazine, and diphenylamine. The other precursor, structure (II), was reacted with 2-aminobenzoic acid, 2-amino-3-methyl, and 2-amino-4-methylpyridine. A total of 9 dyes were prepared and evaluated as sensitizers for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Full computational calculations using DFT B3LYP 6-31+G were carried out for evaluation of band edge and band gap energies of all compounds. The absorption spectra of these dyes as well as cyclic voltammetry were used for the measurement of the HOMO, LUMO, and energy band gaps. The photovoltaic performance of the fabricated DSSCs was measured in different solutions comprising water, alcohol, phenylhydrazine, and dinitrophenylhydazine

Effect of High Fiber Cereal Intake on Satiety and Gastrointestinal Symptoms during Ramadan.

(1) Background: Fasting during Ramadan involves large changes in daily eating patterns which strongly impacts the daily biorhythm and challenges the regular function of the digestive tract. The aim of this study was to assess satiety, bowel habits, body composition, blood glycaemia, and blood lipidemia after the consumption of high fiber cereal at dawn (Sohor) during the month of Ramadan; (2) Methods: A two-arm randomized, controlled, single-blinded, parallel-design study was conducted in Ramadan month. Participants were randomized to consume either 90 g of high fiber cereal (11 g fiber/90 g) at Sohor for 20 consecutive days (intervention group, n = 45) or to maintain their habitual diet intake (control group; n = 36); (3) Results: The intervention group reported higher satiety rating scores, improved bowel habits and reduced bloating frequency after the 20-day intervention. Significantly higher intake of carbohydrates and dietary fiber were observed in the intervention group. Total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol were significantly lower among the intervention group compared to the control group (p-value = 0.043, and p-value = 0.033, respectively) at the end of the intervention. No significant differences in body weight, body fat percentage, waist circumference, body mass index, blood glucose, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and triglycerides were observed between the two groups; (4) Conclusions: Consuming high fiber cereal had a positive effect on health and well-being during the month of Ramadan with better satiety, improved bowel functions, and improved blood lipids

Emphysematous cholecystitis with perforation and biliary peritonitis

Emphysematous cholecystitis (EC), uncommon but potentially fatal sequelae of acute cholecystitis mainly seen in old-aged patients with high mortality rate, caused by secondary infection of gall bladder with gas-forming enteric organisms. Herein, we report a case of emphysematous gangrenous cholecystitis with perforation and biliary peritonitis in a 76-years-old non-diabetic lady that was successfully managed by surgical intervention coupled with medical. The report of this case highlights the risk of missing this extremely rare but potentially fatal condition once the patient presents in late-stage with concurrent complications like perforation and peritonitis. Therefore, prompt diagnosis and early surgical intervention is imperative are imperative to avoid undesired outcomes