A Psycholinguistic Investigation of the Lexicality of Semantic Features in Tashlhit: Priming Experiment

Tashlhit remains an unexplored language in the psycholinguistic field. This paper aims to examine the lexical structures in the language using priming experiment. Our main goal is to study the lexicality of semantic features in the Tashlhit lexicon with an in-depth consideration of frequency factors and semantic relatedness. In this research, we used a supraliminal speech priming test and lexical decision task to examine the lexical status of the semantic features in the Tashlhit lexicon. The results showed that semantic features have a facilitatoy priming effect implying its significant role in language processing.

Factors Affecting Online Services Shopping Behavior: A Study of Egyptian Consumers

Online services are a relatively new type of shopping in Egypt. Online Service (e-service) is defined as an experience or act delivered by one person to another, being requested online, and delivered online or offline, without this second person owning any tangible product. This type of shopping is overwhelming in the whole world including Egypt. In Egypt, nowadays, the online shopping trend is booming rapidly. A lot of people shop online for nearly all kinds of products and services, yet there are still some products such as buying gold that are not as well bought online as other products and services. There are a lot of factors affecting the behavior of consumers, but most of these factors have not been investigated. Several articles and researches have been conducted on the factors behind online shopping worldwide, but they are very few articles which focus on Egypt and discuss consumers’ online shopping triggers in Egypt. Since Egypt is relatively a collectivist country; it is important to study and to highlight the triggers behind Egyptian consumers online shopping behavior. Thus, this research aims to understand the Egyptian online services shoppers’ behavior behind online shopping for services. Research Design In this research, a descriptive research methodology is used to examine certain traits of a specific group of people (online services shoppers), and to forecast what motivates their online services shopping behavior. To answer this, an obvious research question and set of hypotheses are used. Moreover, since a descriptive research method is used in this research; some quantitative results would be collected through a questionnaire that is distributed over 404 respondents are integrated in the research as the targeted sample and they will be asked some questions and required to answer on a 5-point Likert scale ranging their responses from 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree. Moreover, some demographic questions will be asked at the end of the survey. Key Findings Once all the questionnaires had been filled, then data analysis process started. In data analysis process, the SPSS spread sheet is used to generate all respondents’ responses frequencies and percentages on each question of the survey. Finding shows that 70% of the sample or 283 out of 404 respondents were mainly youth between the age of 18 to 29 years old. Moreover, gender is equally shared in the sample between females who were 50.2% and males who were 49.8% of the sample. Furthermore, 70.3% of the sample respondents were B¬¬achelor degree holders. Reliability is tested to be high since all the independent variables’ Cronbach Alpha including attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, behavioral intention, desired consequence (convenience, time, price, and trust) ¬¬¬¬¬are above 0.70, so they are all affecting the dependent variable which is online buying intention. Moreover, Findings shows that all independent variables have positive correlation with the dependent variable “Behavior Intention”, yet one independent variable “Attitude” has the highest Pearson Correlation at .691 with the dependent variable “Behavioral Intention”. Furthermore, for the inferential analysis, multiple regression is used for interval hypothesis ANOVA is used to analyze ordinal hypothesis which tackles with demographics, and t-test is used for hypothesis that deals with gender. As a result of the previous, it is concluded that hypotheses 1, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 8 are accepted with “Attitude” being higher predictor for “Behavioral Intention” toward online services shopping followed by “Perceived Behavioral Control”, “Desired Outcome – Trust”, “Desired Outcome – Convenience”, and “Desired Outcome – Price”, beside women having lower “Behavior Intention” to acquire services online than men. Unlike hypotheses 2, 5, 9, and 10 are rejected as the p-value for subjective norm, time, education level, and age group are all above 0.05. Conclusion and Recommendations Results of this research showed that the factors that mainly affect Egyptian online buying intention for online services are attitude, perceived behavioral control, desired outcome including trust, convenience, price. Besides, findings show that women having lower behavior intention to acquire services online than men. On the other hand, findings indicate that respondents also agree that factors such as subjective norm, time, education level, and age group are not determinants of consumers’ buying intention. Based on the research findings, these outcomes will be useful in giving new insights to marketers marketing strategies when examining factors that affect consumers online buying intention in business-to-consumer fields. Hence, marketers would be able to ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬increase their business value and compete in the market. Moreover, results of this research would be helpful for sellers and shoppers as sellers will be able to boost their selling process by moving to the Internet channels for better and various online services which satisfy their customer for having numerous online services

Development of a System for Crude Oil Classification

Crude oil is the most sought petroleum product and can be found in different places of the world. It is composed of hydrocarbon, organic compounds and small amounts of metal, this mixture can be refined to produce thousands of products that are generally called petrochemicals including gasoline, diesel oil and plastics. Crude oil can be classified according to the physical and chemical properties of the oil, such as API Gravity of the oil, viscosity, colour and specific gravity. It can also be classified as either "sweet" or "sour" crude oil based on its sulphur content. However, the API gravity classification technique is perhaps the most important because it gives good indication of the commercial value or the price of the given oil. In terms of API gravity, the crude oil is classified as light, medium, heavy and extra heavy crude oils. The classification is done in the laboratory and it’s considered as a time-consuming process. The scope of this project is to design a system that can minimize the time to classify the crude oil into two types by measuring the optical properties of the oil, applications for this system are mostly used in oil and gas field

Fine structure of the dorsal lingual epithelium in Tarentola annularis and Crocodylus niloticus

The present study examined the morphological features, histological and histochemical aspect of the tongue of two reptilian species, Tarentola annularis (family: Gekkonidae) and Crocodylus niloticus (family: Crocodylidea), with different habitats, feeding patterns and behaviours, by light and scanning electron microscope. It was observed, that the bifurcation of the tongue was more visible in Tarentola annularis. Conical and filamentous papillae were observed on the lingual body of Tarentola annularis, while in Crocodylus niloticus both mechanical filiform and gustatory papillae appeared. The lingual mucosa in Tarentola annularis is covered by stratified squamous epithelium and keratinised but in Crocodylus niloticus it is highly folded and more heavily keratinised in the folded region and have a localised thickenings structure resembling taste buds. Mucous glands appeared in Tarentola annularis and compound tubular glands in Crocodylus niloticus. At scanning electron microscopy, abundant microridges and microvilli in both species were exhibited on papillae surface facilitated feeding habits. Histochemically, the tongue of two species is strongly positive for carbohydrate stain but with variable degree with others stains. In conclusion, there is a marked correlation between the structure of the tongue of the present reptilian species, habitats and feeding mechanism of the two species.

GENOTOXIC AND MUTAGENIC STUDIES OF THE ANTIEPILEPTIC DRUG LEVETIRACETAM IN PREGNANT RATS AND THEIR FETUSES

Objective: Levetiracetam (LEV) is an anti-epileptic drug, initially approved as an adjunct therapy in adult patients with partial-onset seizures, and used as monotherapy treatment during pregnancy. However, very few, if none, investigations have been focused on LEV neurotoxicity or hepatotoxicity at the molecular level. This study aimed to evaluate the genotoxic and mutagenic potential of LEV, in liver and brain tissues of treated pregnant rats and their fetuses during pregnancy.Methods: LEV was administered to pregnant female albino rats at doses 300 or 600 mg/kg b. w, from gestation days 5-18. Comet assay, DNA fragmentation were performed for detection of DNA damage. Single-stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP) followed by DNA sequencing were accomplished for detecting possible mutagenicity.Results: Administration of the two tested doses of LEV resulted in a significant increase of DNA damage as detected by alkaline Comet assay, and an appearance of both apoptotic laddered and smeared DNA in the tissues tested. Moreover, a significant incidence of mutations in exon 2 and 3 of Harvey rat sarcoma viral oncogene (HRAS) gene, were detected in fetal liver and brain tissues respectively, using single-stranded conformation polymorphism (SSCP) and were conï¬rmed by DNA sequencing.Conclusion: Maternal and fetal DNA damage induced by LEV was evidenced in our study, even at the commonly used therapeutic dose (300 mg/kg), and thus these side effects should be considered when using LEV for long-term during pregnancy.Â