Development of a survey instrument for measuring the perceptions and attitudes of the managers of Saudi public organisations on the benefits of Saudi labour rights and laws

The procedure adopted for development of a survey instrument to measure the perceptions and attitudes of Saudi managers on the benefits laws has been described in this paper. The commonly adopted procedure of determining the scales and items for the survey was followed. The context-specific requirements were considered in determining the items to be included in the two scales. The full questionnaire contained relevant demographic items, eight items each for perceptions and attitudes measurement and a final open question for whatever the survey participants wished to say about the topic of survey. A pilot trial was done using the developed survey instrument to measure perceptions and attitudes of Saudi public sector managers on the benefits enjoyed by their workforce due to favourable labour laws. The results showed both perceptions and attitudes of managers to be positive. The results were explained in a number of different ways with the support of literature. Some limitations of this research, as scope for further research, have also been listed

Managing security and compliance risks of outsourced IT projects

PhD ThesisSeveral sources of constraints, such as business, financial and legal, can lead organisations to outsource some of their IT services. As a consequence, different security risks may be introduced, such as confidentiality, integrity and availability risks. Analysing and managing the potential security risks in the early stages of project execution allow organisations to avoid or mitigate the impact of these security risks. Several organisations have adopted ISMS standards and frameworks in an endeavour to manage outsourced IT project security risks. In this thesis, existing ISMS standards and frameworks have been reviewed and analysed to assess their ability to effectively manage the security and compliance risks of outsourced IT projects and satisfy their security needs. The review reveals that existing ISMS standards and frameworks represent only general security recommendations and do not consider variation in security requirements from one organisation to another. There is also a lack of adequate guidance for implementing or complying with these standards and frameworks, and they are not designed to manage the security and compliance risks of outsourced IT projects. To overcome these weaknesses, a new framework has been introduced. The framework is a structured approach that is designed to manage variation in security requirements, as well as provide a methodology to guide organisations for the purpose of security management and implementation. The framework was evaluated using different evaluation methods including a focus group, questionnaire, and case study, which were also used to generate recommendations and suggestions for improvements. The evaluation results confirmed that the framework provided the participants with an effective approach for managing security and compliance risks in the outsourcing context. It was understandable, easy to use, and independent from different constraints such as project size, cost or execution time. The framework is now ready to be put into practice by organisations that intend to outsource their IT services partially or totally

Strategic management role in boosting hotel performance

The foremost aim of this paper is to examine the right linkage of specific market orientation, innovation strategy and organizational performance of 114 hotels in Malaysia. Data were drawn from census method on 475 hotels’ top and middle managers who are responsible for the progress of innovation and market orientation of their hotel. These research findings confirmed that all hypotheses give valuable indications on the strategic linkage of specific market orientation and innovation strategy to pursue for improved organizational performance. The results highlighted hotels pursuing competitor orientation focused on process innovation. Hotels that pursue customer orientation focused on service innovation. The result shows that competitor orientation, customer orientation, process innovation and service innovation have a significant effect on organizational performance. Remarkably, this research found process innovation partially mediates the association between competitor orientation and performance, while service innovation partially mediates the association of customer orientation and performance. The paper develops an integrated model that link specific market orientation, innovation strategy and organizational performance of hotels in Malaysia

Investigating the impacts of increased uptake of electric vehicles on air quality and health

PhD ThesisGlobally, nine million deaths per year are attributed to exposure to air pollution, as estimated by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health (Landrigan et al., 2018). In the UK, approximately 40,000 deaths per annum are attributed to exposure to PM2.5 and NO2, costing society nearly £20 billion annually from the health-related consequences of people suffering diseases and early deaths (Royal College of Physicians, 2016). Road transport emissions are a major source of air contaminants, and in 2016 they contributed to 12.4% of PM2.5, 11.7% of PM10 and 33.6% of NOx (DEFRA, 2018); the latter contributing 80% of NO2 concentrations at roadsides (DEFRA and DfT, 2017a). Additionally, vehicular emissions account for 24% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (BEIS, 2018a). To mitigate air quality pollutants and GHGs, the UK government’s Road to Zero strategy plans to limit the sale of new cars and vans to ultra-low emissions vehicles (ULEVs), mainly focusing on electric vehicles (EVs), by 2040 with the aim of forming an entire stock of ULEVs by 2050. Currently, the government is investing £1.5 billion in measures dedicated to increasing the penetration of ULEVs and optimising their manufacturing and infrastructure. These measures would result in changes in the vehicle fleet mix and consequently reductions in emissions and pollutant concentrations. A detailed investigation is needed to quantify their impact. In this research, the impact of changes in the vehicle fleet with the increased adoption of EV, on air quality and health was investigated via scenarios that consider different levels of future EV uptake replacing conventional vehicles in Newcastle and Gateshead. Road transport network data for 2010 for the study area was acquired and updated to provide the 2014 Baseline, considering traffic growth for each vehicle class. The Baseline traffic model was validated following the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges criteria. The resulting emissions rates were calculated using an emissions model. The dispersion of pollutants was modelled taking into consideration the effect of meteorological factors. The air quality model was validated following DEFRA Technical Guidance. The 2014 Baseline traffic was updated to business-as-usual (BAU) for 2030. Six future scenarios were developed based on this BAU. These scenarios include: 1. ‘CCC’: Committee on Climate Change proposal for 30% of cars and 38% of vans being electric; 2. ‘E-Bus’: electrification of all buses; 3. ‘E-Car’: electrification of all cars; 4. ‘E-Car_E-Bus’: electrification of all cars and buses; 5. ‘E-Car_E-LGV’: electrification of all cars and LGVs; and 6. ‘All-EV’: electrification of all vehicles. Emission and dispersion models were applied to determine changes in air quality in response to the BAU and the six scenarios. The results indicate that pollution concentrations in 2030 would be reduced to varying extents compared to the 2014 Baseline. The annual mean reductions at the 66 General Practitioner (GP) sites were averaged for all 2030 scenarios across the study and showed a drop of 8 µg/m3 in NO2 levels and 3 µg/m3 in PM10 and PM2.5 levels. The Department of Health recommended dose-response coefficients, which describe the association between exposure to a certain amount of pollutants and the probabilities of being admitted to hospital and early mortality, were applied to the pollutant reductions at each GP site to estimate the number of respiratory hospital admissions at each GP location. Disease burden estimates suggest that the 2030 BAU will reduce hospital admissions by 1,297, representing 13% of the 9,693 cases recorded in 2014. It was noted that a large reduction in hospital admissions would occur due to decreases in NO2 concentrations. In the All-EV ii scenario, hospital admissions are expected to be reduced by 1,377, which could also nearly be achieved either by electrifying all cars and all buses or electrifying all cars and LGVs with a lower cost in relation to All-EV. Reducing premature mortality is estimated to account for 14 to 16 incidents. This study shows that the EV uptake scenarios will result in significant reductions in air pollution emissions and concentrations and consequent hospital admissions compared to BAU taking into consideration the relatively small population of Newcastle and Gateshead

Corporate tax avoidance practices of multinationals and country responses to improve quality of compliance

The aim of this systematic review was to review the methods adopted by corporates to avoid corporate tax, factors related to it and responses of countries to improve their compliance. Using Google Scholar with the topic as the search terms and different overlapping timeframes, the search yielded 68 papers. These were listed and briefly described. The common factors in these studies were tabulated for easy reference. It was a revelation in the way the corporates adopted methods to avoid sales tax. Papers dealing with policies, strategies and impact of sales tax on these corporates were in majority. Economic growth variables and their linkage to sales tax were the basis of study of some papers. Corporate social responsibility is an essential part of corporate finance and an attempt to link it with their tax compliance practice was the subject in some. Studies also covered the role of civic and interest groups in preventing evasion of tax as detrimental to society at large. An important aspect which came to light was that as long as there is competition among countries on tax matters and the existence of tax havens, a defiance of the tax laws and the tendency to avoid tax was noticed. Only a thorough reform of the tax laws in the countries will check these large scale evasions and bring more revenue where it is required. The need of the hour is a vigilant civil rights and interest group which can add pressure on the corporates to behave responsibly and ethically towards tax compliance. The implications that these changes will bring is huge as it prevents leakage of income which is rightly due to the governments. This study will help in plugging the loop holes and ensuring stricter compliance with the laws of the land

Grafting eco-diasporic identity in Randa Abdel-Fattah’s selected novels

This paper is based on three selected novels entitled Does My Head Look Big In This? (2005), Ten Things I Hate About Me (2006), and Where The Streets Had A Name (2008) written by Randa Abdel-Fattah (1979), a Palestinian-Egyptian Australian Muslim diasporic writer. In this article, we examine the manifestations of grafting eco-diasporic identity by Abdel-Fattah in order to address how identity graft is operated by interacting with ideology, culture and nature in the contexts of the host land and the homeland as represented in the three selected novels. Using Colin Richards’ theory of graft as a framework, we explore identity contestations of Muslim young adults in the novels from an ecocritical and diasporic perspectives. In the novel Does My Head Look Big In This?, the images of Amal’s sense of being marginalised in the semiosphere of the host land and the sense of self-respect of her Muslim rootedness and heritage of the homeland semiosphere frame the fractured graft of identity. The character of Jamilah, in Ten Things I Hate About Me displays genuine manifestations of the collective emblem of the grafted identity. Finally, the symbol of the iconic jar of the homeland soil and its potentiality of regenerating Hayaat’s identity in Where the Streets Had A Name exhibits the ecological semiosphere in which the grafted identity is shaped. The current discussion, therefore, offers fresh insights into allowing a new horizon for identity grafting in Abdel-Fattah’s works as well as other writers within the tradition of Muslim Diasporic Literature

Analysing Use Case Diagrams in a Calculus of Context-aware Ambients

Use case diagrams are an excellent tool for capturing and analyzing the functional requirements of a system under development. Context-aware use case diagrams are an extension of use case diagrams to cater for both the functional requirements and the context-awareness requirements of context-aware and pervasive systems. They provide (graphical) notations for specifying, visualizing and documenting the intended behavior of a context-aware system at an early stage of the system development life-cycle. This paper proposes an approach to analyzing context-aware use case diagrams usind a Calculus of Context-aware Ambients (CCA). An algorithm is proposed that translates a context-aware use case diagram into a CCA process. This process can then be analyzed using the CCA tools such as the simulator ccaPL which enables the execution of CCA processes and the model-checker ccaSPIN that can check automatically whether a CCA process satisfies a desired property, e.g. deadlock freedom and reachability. The proposed approach is evaluated using a real-word example of a context-aware pedestrian collision avoidance system

Scabies: Application of the Novel Identify-Isolate-Inform Tool for Detection and Management

Scabies is a highly contagious, globally prevalent, parasitic skin infestation caused by Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis, also known as the itch mite. There have been outbreaks not only in the developing world, but also in the developed world among refugees and asylum seekers. Once infested with scabies mites, symptomatic patients, as well as asymptomatic carriers, quickly spread the disease through direct skin-to-skin contact. Typically, symptoms of scabies are characterized by an erythematous, papular, pruritic rash associated with burrows. Treatment of scabies involves using topical or systemic scabicides and treating secondary bacterial infections, if present. Given the prevalence and contagiousness of scabies, measures to prevent its spread are essential. Through application of the novel Identify-Isolate-Inform (3I) Tool, emergency medical providers can readily identify risk factors for exposure and important symptoms of the disease, thus limiting its spread through prompt scabicide therapy; isolate the patient until after treatment; and inform local public health authorities and hospital infection prevention, when appropriate. Ultimately, these three actions can aid public health in controlling the transmission of scabies cases, thus ensuring the protection of the general public from this highly contagious skin infestation

Men’s health in industries: Plastic plant pollution and prevalence of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus

Plastic production is prominently increasing and its pollution is an emerging environmental global health concern. This study aimed to investigate the occurrence of pre-diabetes and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among nonsmoking plastic industry workers. Three hundred and forty volunteers male plastic industry workers were interviewed after medical history and examination; finally, 278 nonsmoking plastic industry workers were selected. The mean age for the participants was 38.03 ± 10.86 years and body mass index was 25.52 ± 3.15 (kg/m)2. The plastic industry workers had been exposed to plastic plant pollution for 8 hr daily, 6 days in a week. Subjects with glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) less than 5.7% were considered non-diabetics; HbA1c 5.7%-6.4% were pre-diabetics; and subjects with HbA1c greater than 6.4% were considered diabetics. In plastic industry workers, the prevalence of pre-diabetes was 176 (63.30%) and T2DM was 66 (23.74%); however, 36 (12.95%) plastic plant workers were normal. The prevalence of pre-diabetes and T2DM among plastic industry workers was significantly increased with duration of working exposure in plastic industry ( p = .0001). Exposure to plastic plant pollution is associated with the prevalence of pre-diabetes and T2DM among plastic industry workers. The prevalence was associated with the duration of working exposure in plastic industry. The occupational and environmental health executives must take priority steps to minimize the plastic plant pollution from plastic industries to reduce the occurrence of pre-diabetes and T2DM among the plastic industrial workers and save the men\u27s health in industries