Cultivation effects of Saudi newspapers on estimates of expatriate crime

For years, scholarly work examined the media effects on audience and how they view and understand the world. In particular, media can play a role in shaping how an individual views crime and criminals. Using cultivation theory, this study examines the effects of Saudi Arabian print media (newspapers) on nationals and expatriates living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Surveys from 526 respondents were analyzed and hypotheses tested finding; there was no relationship between level of readership and personal perceptions of expat crime levels; there is no statistical significance between the level of readership and further judgments on how to deal with expat crimes and no resonance effect was found. On the other hand, group membership has a significant effect on estimations of expat crime levels

Problems of Teaching and Learning English as a Foreign Language in South Yemen: A Case Study of Lahj Governorate

The task of teaching and learning English as a foreign language is not an easy task as there are many factors that may contribute positively or negatively to its success. In the context of this study, most school-leavers have very poor English, especially when looking at their oral skills. This indicates that there are some problems that EFL learning and teaching encounter, and then such problems are reflected in students’ proficiency level. This study, therefore, explored the problems encountering EFL teaching and learning in Lahj primary and secondary schools to identify such problems and suggest some solutions that may help in improving English language teaching and learning in the concerned schools. Data were collected from 32 EFL senior teachers and supervisors of Lahj governorate. Findings showed that large classes, lack of teaching aids, teachers’ low proficiency in English, teachers’ limited experience with communicative language teaching, late beginning of learning English, lack of focus on oral communicative English, use of mother tongue in classroom, students’ low motivation and interference between English and Arabic are considered as major problems encountering English language teaching and learning in the concerned South Yemeni schools and contribute negatively to students’ proficiency level. The study has provided some recommendations that may help in improving EFL teaching and learning in the concerned schools and in Yemeni schools generally

Board composition, ownership structure and dividend policies in an emerging market

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine dividend policies in an emerging capital market, in a country undergoing a transitional period.Design/methodology/approachUsing pooled cross‐sectional observations from the top 50 listed Egyptian firms between 2003 and 2005, this study examines the effect of board of directors' composition and ownership structure on dividend policies in Egypt.FindingsIt is found that there is a significant positive association between institutional ownership and firm performance, and both dividend decision and payout ratio. The results confirm that firms with a higher return on equity and a higher institutional ownership distribute higher levels of dividend. No significant association was found between board composition and dividend decisions or ratios.Originality/valueThis study provides additional evidence of the applicability of the signalling model in the emerging market of Egypt. It was found that despite the high institutional ownership and the closely held nature of the firms, which imply lower agency costs, the payment of higher dividend was considered necessary to attract capital during this transitional period.</jats:sec

Study the Using of Reed Mats in Asphalt Pavement Layers

During the service life, the asphalt pavement layers subjected to various detrimental types of distresses such as permanent deformation, fatigue, stripping and shoving which lead to the complete failure of the pavement. In Iraq roads the permanent deformation (rutting) is the importance distresses which cause impact on the highway performance and reducing the service life of the pavement. The research aims to utilize locally available materials and environment friendly as reinforcement layer. The program of this research include preparing asphalt mixes represent surface layer by using locally available materials and using the reinforcement layer which made of reed. The permanent deformation test has been done with three temperatures (40˚C, 50˚C and 60˚C) and four locations of the reed mats. The test results of the wheel- Track for the rutting measurement showed that the rut depth decrease in reinforcement layers as compared with unreinforcement layers for all temperature testing. The reed netting embedded bottom and middle of wearing layer has the best amount of improvement (75%, 84% and 85%)

Weak solution for nonlinear degenerate elliptic problem with Dirichlet-type boundary condition in weighted Sobolev spaces

summary:In the present paper, we prove the existence and uniqueness of weak solution to a class of nonlinear degenerate elliptic $p$-Laplacian problem with Dirichlet-type boundary condition, the main tool used here is the variational method combined with the theory of weighted Sobolev spaces

Entropy solution for nonlinear degenerate elliptic problem with Dirichlet-type boundary condition in weighted Sobolev spaces

In this paper, we prove the existence and uniqueness results of entropy solution to a class of nonlinear degenerate elliptic problem with Dirichlet-type boundary condition and L1 data. The main tool used here is the regularization approach combined with theory of weighted Sobolev spaces

Yemeni EFL students’ perceptions and implementation of computer-assisted language learning.

: This study investigated how Yemeni EFL students perceive computer-assisted language learning, the extent to which CALL is implemented in their learning of English in and outside their faculties and the difficulties they encounter when implementing CALL. Data were collected through a questionnaire that targeted 74 Yemeni EFL students and then analyzed by using SPSS 21st version. Results revealed that the students who participated in this study perceive CALL positively (overall mean = 4.1144 out of 5) and believe in its effectiveness in developing their language skills and making their EFL learning enjoyable and interesting. Moreover, Female students showed a higher overall positive attitude towards CALL as compared to their male counterparts and that was reflected in their implementation of CALL too. A significant correlation was also found between students’ perceptions of CALL and their computer competence in the favor of those students with higher computer competence while no significant correlation was found in relation to age. The results have also revealed that CALL’s implementation by many of the participants is still low. Unavailability of internet and lack of CALL tools at their faculty; in addition to students’ lack of computer competence are viewed as the major barriers to CALL implementation by the Yemeni EFL students understudy. As per the results, the study recommends Yemeni Universities to provide CALL tools and internet for their EFL classrooms and libraries and to train students to use technology for English learning purposes. It also recommends Yemeni EFL students to invest technology at hand for their EFL learning.

A Study of Yemeni Secondary School Students’ Article Errors in their English Writing

This study has investigated Yemeni secondary school students’ articles errors with a reference to Labooza secondary school and AL-Samood secondary school in Radfan district. Data were collected through a writing test that targeted 100 students. The results revealed that 53.6% of students’ uses of the articles were wrong. It also showed that these errors can be subdivided into article omission errors 41.79%, article addition errors 23.88%, and article substitution errors 34.32%. These errors can be attributed to two sources, namely a- interference with students’ mother tongue (interlingual interference), constituting 39.93% and b- students’ insufficient knowledge of English articles as well as poor English teaching (intralingual), constituting 60.07%. As per these findings, these study provides some recommendations to syllabi designers, teachers and students of the Yemeni secondary schools