Towards an integrated model for citizen adoption of E-government services in developing countries: A Saudi Arabia case study

This paper considers the challenges that face the widespread adoption of E-government in developing countries, using Saudi Arabian our case study. E-government can be defined based on an existing set of requirements. In this paper we define E-government as a matrix of stakeholders; governments to governments, governments to business and governments to citizens using information and communications technology to deliver and consume services. E-government has been implemented for a considerable time in developed countries. However E-government services still faces many challenges their implemented and general adoption in developing countries. Therefore, this paper presents an integrated model for ascertaining the intention to adopt E-government services and thereby aid governments in accessing what is required to increase adoption

Effects of hydrocarbon contamination on soil microbial community and enzyme activity

Acknowledgment I would like to gratefully acknowledge the government of Saudi Arabia for the scholarship and financial support.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

New approaches to elemental speciation

Elemental speciation has been one of the principal growth areas in analytical atomic spectrometry. This reflects the recognition that in the environmental and biological sciences, the transport, pool dynamics and toxicology of the elements are dependent on their chemical speciation. Significant progress has been made in elemental speciation by the direct coupling of separation techniques, notably the various forms of chromatography, to powerful elemental detectors such as ICP-MS. However, the strength of such hyphenated techniques, that they provide almost unambiguous identification of elemental associations, is often achieved at the expense of losing information about the ligands that are responsible for the speciation. The challenge must be to bring the two approaches to bear simultaneously so that quantitative and qualitative information on both the inorganic and organic components can be obtained simultaneously. Capillary electrophoresis (CE) has developed into one of the most powerful separation techniques offering rapid separations with high resolution. However, these advantages are offset by low sensitivity which is a consequence of the very small (nl) samples that the technique can handle. These problems can be overcome by using high sensitivity detectors and hence the interest in coupling CE to .ICP-MS. Coupling of CE to ICP-MS (CE-ICP-MS) has, therefore, the potential to provide rapid and quantitative elemental speciation information that is complementary to that provided by other techniques. This thesis describes an interface for coupling CE to ICP-MS and its applications to some common metal species. A particular interest in this work has been to investigate the potential of CE for studying metal complexes with humic and fulvic acids. A technique that offers potential for determining both free element and complexed forms, without prior separation IS electrospray/ion spray ionisation-mass spectrometry. Preliminary work is presented that investigates the applications of electrospray/ion spray ionisation-mass spectrometry to some common metal-ligand systems

Developing and Assessing a Social Networking Framework for Universities in Saudi Arabia

The interactive capacities of social networking have unleashed the potential for enhancing teaching and learning in the higher education sector. This research focuses on Saudi Arabia in order to determine the factors that must be considered for developing a social networking framework for the use in universities. The main research outcome is a social networking framework for higher education in Saudi Arabia which can be used by a range of stakeholders within higher educatio

Quasiperpendicular high Mach number Shocks

Shock waves exist throughout the universe and are fundamental to understanding the nature of collisionless plasmas. Reformation is a process, driven by microphysics, which typically occurs at high Mach number supercritical shocks. While ongoing studies have investigated this process extensively both theoretically and via simulations, their observations remain few and far between. In this letter we present a study of very high Mach number shocks in a parameter space that has been poorly explored and we identify reformation using in situ magnetic field observations from the Cassini spacecraft at 10 AU. This has given us an insight into quasi-perpendicular shocks across two orders of magnitude in Alfven Mach number (MA) which could potentially bridge the gap between modest terrestrial shocks and more exotic astrophysical shocks. For the first time, we show evidence for cyclic reformation controlled by specular ion reflection occurring at the predicted timescale of ~0.3 {\tau}c, where {\tau}c is the ion gyroperiod. In addition, we experimentally reveal the relationship between reformation and MA and focus on the magnetic structure of such shocks to further show that for the same MA, a reforming shock exhibits stronger magnetic field amplification than a shock that is not reforming.Comment: Accepted and Published in Physical Review Letters (2015

Recurrent Abdominal Pain in Children

Recurrent abdominal pain is one of the most common symptoms found in children. Description of abdominal pain is important in determining the etiologic cause. Organic pain must be ruled out first before suspecting psychogenic cause of pain. However, Children and infant are likely having difficulties in describing abdominal pain. Referred pain may lead to misdiagnosis. Alarm symptoms of abdominal pain are important indices and must be recognized. Careful and complete anamnesis and physical examination play critical role in management approach of recurrent abdominal pain in children and determine whether medical therapy only or combination with surgical intervention is considered necessary

Social Commerce Among Micro and Small Medium Enterprises Before and During the COVID19: A Systematic Literature Review

Social commerce (SC) is a relatively new tool that businesses are using to conduct business using social media (SM). The findings of prior literature are inconclusive. This paper reviews the literature to identify the current status and to identify the determinant of SC. A systematic literature review was conducted. A total of 41 articles were reviewed. A comparison between before and during COVID19 was conducted. The findings showed the number of studies has not increased during COVID-19. The technology acceptance model (TAM) and Technology-Organization- Environment (TOE) are used widely in the literature. The most important factors identified in this study are divided into before COVID19 and during COVID19. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use were important in both periods. New variables that were considered important during COVID19 is the organizational readiness, trust, security, and E- word of mouth (EWOM). More research is needed to understand the factors that contribute to SC adoption in different nations. Variables such as trust, environmental uncertainty, and perceived value can be included in future work. Developing a digital ecosystem for SC is a direction for future work. Understanding the important factors can contribute to the advancement of SC

PENGARUH LINGKUNGAN STRATEGI DAN PERENCANAAN STRATEGI TERHADAP KINERJA PEMERINTAH KOTA KUPANG DENGAN BUDAYA ORGANISASI SEBAGAI VARIABEL MODERASI

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji pengaruh lingkungan strategi, perencanaan strategi dan budaya organisasi terhadap kinerja pemerintah kota kupang serta menguji pengaruh interaksi antara lingkungan strategi dan perencanaan strategi terhadap kinerja pemerintah kota kupang. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah seluruh dinas dan badan daerah di Kota Kupang yang berjumlah 27 OPD dengan perwakilan 5 orang tiap instansi, sehingga berjumlah 135 orang. Dari 135 kuesioner yang disebarkan, 113 kuesioner yang kembali dan dapat dijadikan data penelitian. Teknik analisis yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah regresi berganda dan Moderate Regression Analyse (MRA) yang dibantu dengan program SmartPLS 3. Hasil pengujian hipotesis menunjukkan bahwa lingkungan strategi tidak berpengaruh secara signifikan terhadap kinerja pemerintah kupang sedangkan perencanaan strategi dan budaya organsasi berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kinerja pemerintah kota kupang. Hasil uji interaksi menunjukkan bahwa lingkungan strategi berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kinerja Pemerintah Kupang Sedangkan perencanaan strategi tidak berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kinerja

Selecting Treatment Modality for Small Hepatocellular Carcinoma: Radiofrequency Ablation, Percutaneous Alcohol and Acetic Acid Injection

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary hepatic Malignancy worldwide and is the leading cause of death in patients with cirrhosis. In early-stage tumors, potential curative therapies have been used including ablative therapies using percutaneous ethanol injection (PEI), percutaneous acetic acid injection (PAI) or radiofrequency ablation (RFA); surgical resection and liver transplantation. RFA is more effective and safer than other local ablative therapy modalities. RFA should be considered as the first-line treatment for patients with small HCC, i.e. sized less than 5 cm; preferably less than or equal to 3 cm since they are not suitable for liver resection or liver transplantation. RFA should also be compared with transarterial embolization, which currently has been considered as the standard HCC therapy in some countries. It has been reported that the combination of RFA and embolization treatment may reduce the early and late recurrence rate

Design high frequency surgical robot controller: design FPGA-based controller for surgical robot manipulator simscape modeling

Recent developments of robotics allocated many of industrial and medical activities. So that most of industries turned to use surgical robots in their production line or in their surgery. Being precise, spent less time-consuming, present uniform quality with less cost and reducing waste and energy are some advantages of using robots in industry. This paper has two important objectives: a) study on modeling and controlling of 4 degrees of freedom (DOF) based on Simscape software and b) design FPGA-based controller for this type of surgical robot manipulator. Simscape provides an environment for modeling and simulating physical systems. Simscape modeling can be designed to control and test system-level performance. Conventional PID controller is a stable linear type model-free controller that reduces the delay time in highly nonlinear system. In this research, linear controller need real time mobility operation, and one of the most important devices which can be used to solve this challenge is Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). FPGA can be used to design a controller in a single chip Integrated Circuit (IC). To design PID type FPGA-based controller two types algorithm are needed: derivative algorithm and integral algorithm. In HDL based derivative algorithm the minimum input arrival time before clock is 16.466 ns and the maximum frequency is 60.73 MHz, but in the best design action, the maximum frequency to design this single chip algorithm should be 63.629 MHz. In HDL integral algorithm the minimum input arrival time before clock is 15.599 ns and the maximum frequency is 64.1 MHz, but in the best design action, the maximum frequency to design this single chip algorithm should be 178.190 MHz