Problems of English Language Acquisition in Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory-cum-remedial Study

‘An international language belongs to its users, not to the countries whose national languages have become internationalized’ (Edge 1992). With an ever increasing number of L2 users it is time we rewrote the description of the place of English among world languages. All types of interactions, more particularly between nations, are through English, for a reason no other than the fact that it is the only language in which non native users can possibly communicate.  It is the language of science, technology and business apart from being significant in political or diplomatic dialogues. English Language has come to be owned by all people in the world of work. Saudi Arabia is no exception. Almost a hundred years on Saudi schools, colleges and universities teach English with primary and genuine concern. Still, just like non- native learners in other non-English speaking countries, Saudi learners also confront many problems in their English Language acquisition. This study is a humble effort to bring out the major barriers and problems that Saudi students face while learning English; it proposes remedial measures for the said barriers and problems.  In this study, the researcher has tried to focus on the teaching methodologies and learning atmosphere prevalent in Saudi English classrooms

A hybrid of convolutional neural network and long short-term memory network approach to predictive maintenance

Predictive maintenance (PdM) is a successful strategy used to reduce cost by minimizing the breakdown stoppages and production loss. The massive amount of data that results from the integration between the physical and digital systems of the production process makes it possible for deep learning (DL) algorithms to be applied and utilized for fault prediction and diagnosis. This paper presents a hybrid convolutional neural network based and long short-term memory network (CNN-LSTM) approach to a predictive maintenance problem. The proposed CNN-LSTM approach enhances the predictive accuracy and also reduces the complexity of the model. To evaluate the proposed model, two comparisons with regular LSTM and gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) methods using a freely available dataset have been made. The PdM model based on CNN-LSTM method demonstrates better prediction accuracy compared to the regular LSTM, where the average F-Score increases form 93.34% in the case of regular LSTM to 97.48% for the proposed CNN-LSTM. Compared to the related works the proposed hybrid CNN-LSTM PdM approach achieved better results in term of accuracy

EFFECTIVE MICROORGANISMS (EM) DISPERSION SYSTEM FOR DILUTING POLLUTANT IN RIVER

Nowadays, effective microorganism technology is widely used in treating and improving water quality for its environmentally friendly properties. The quality of river water can be considered as one of the most important concern for official authorities worldwide. In Malaysia, the local government is tending to enhance the water quality of rivers in the county by utilizing effective microorganism technology. Determining the suitable amount of the EM to improve water quality is one of the barriers that need to overcome. This report discusses one of the proposed methods for solving the issue of distributing random amount of effective microorganism (EM) in river. Utilizing an automated control system is the focal objective of this writing to dilute pollutant in river. By using such technology, effective microorganism will be poured into the river in mud-ball form based on the need of it. In this paper, developing a prototype consists of well-designed control system to test and study the impact of EM dispensation in a tank of water will be explained in details

Factors affecting the profitability of Islamic banks in GCC countries

This study investigates the impact of internal and external factors on Islamic bank’s profitability in GCC countries for a year period from 2006 to 2012. The study used three profitability measures namely, ROA, ROE and NIM. The study used a balanced panel data set of 175 observations of Islamic banks in 5 countries from the GCC. Seven independent variables are used in this study. These are divided into internal variables (size, management efficiency, loan, asset management and capital) and external variables (inflation and GDP). The results of the study indicate that management efficiency, loan, and GDP have positive and significant relationships with ROE. The study also finds that asset management and capital are positive and statistically significant with ROA, ROE and NIM. Inflation has a positive influence on bank’s profitability as measured by ROA and NIM. The study shows that size has a significant negative impact on bank’s profitability. Overall, the study finds that all internal variables and macroeconomic variables tested have significant impacts on bank’s profitability. The findings from this study provide valuable information not only to bank managers, but also to other parties such as government, shareholders, and potential investors with a better guideline and understanding to enhance Islamic bank’s profitability in the GC

Telecommunication Education Environment and its Optimal Usage

Students in introductory communication theory classes can benefit from a well-planned laboratory component. Such that TIMS lap equipments which can handle a wide variety of experiments ranging from analog baseband to pass-band digital communications. These papers describe three advanced laboratory tasks with their optimized manuals designed by Al Salman Ahmed at Brno University of technology. Two are based on the simulation software TutorTIMS to implement Eye patterns, Signal Constellations, and the third is based on the Biskit hardware to implement Quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK).Students in introductory communication theory classes can benefit from a well-planned laboratory component. Such that TIMS lap equipments which can handle a wide variety of experiments ranging from analog baseband to pass-band digital communications. These papers describe three advanced laboratory tasks with their optimized manuals designed by Al Salman Ahmed at Brno University of technology. Two are based on the simulation software TutorTIMS to implement Eye patterns, Signal Constellations, and the third is based on the Biskit hardware to implement Quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK).

An Enhanced Source Location Privacy based on Data Dissemination in Wireless Sensor Networks (DeLP)

open access articleWireless Sensor Network is a network of large number of nodes with limited power and computational capabilities. It has the potential of event monitoring in unattended locations where there is a chance of unauthorized access. The work that is presented here identifies and addresses the problem of eavesdropping in the exposed environment of the sensor network, which makes it easy for the adversary to trace the packets to find the originator source node, hence compromising the contextual privacy. Our scheme provides an enhanced three-level security system for source location privacy. The base station is at the center of square grid of four quadrants and it is surrounded by a ring of flooding nodes, which act as a first step in confusing the adversary. The fake node is deployed in the opposite quadrant of actual source and start reporting base station. The selection of phantom node using our algorithm in another quadrant provides the third level of confusion. The results show that Dissemination in Wireless Sensor Networks (DeLP) has reduced the energy utilization by 50% percent, increased the safety period by 26%, while providing a six times more packet delivery ratio along with a further 15% decrease in the packet delivery delay as compared to the tree-based scheme. It also provides 334% more safety period than the phantom routing, while it lags behind in other parameters due to the simplicity of phantom scheme. This work illustrates the privacy protection of the source node and the designed procedure may be useful in designing more robust algorithms for location privac

Factors Associated with Access to the Saudi Primary Healthcare in Light of Vision 2030

Objective: Primary healthcare is a comprehensive approach to ensuring universal access to essential healthcare services. The Ministry of Health in Saudi Arabia has developed health-related objectives to enhance the accessibility of healthcare services and refining its policies. However, certain obstacles may impede the delivery and accessibility of healthcare, particularly to primary healthcare centers. The current study explored the variables associated with the accessibility of primary healthcare services in the context of Saudi Vision 2030. In particular, the research focused on examining the organizational and doctor-patient communication factors that are linked to primary healthcare accessibility. Methodology: In this cross-sectional study, an electronic questionnaire is used to collect data from patients visiting the primary healthcare facilities located within the second health cluster in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Results: The findings indicate that the organizational factors that have the greatest influence on primary healthcare accessibility are the proximity of the primary healthcare centers, the rapid and convenient nature of the registration and payment procedures, the cleanliness, design, and clarity of the facility, and the availability of up-to-date technologies and equipment. As for the factors affecting access to primary healthcare in doctor-patient communication, the most notable factors include the provision of respectful treatment by the doctor toward patients, attentive listening to patients’ concerns and questions, and clear explanation of treatment plans and outcomes. Conclusion: The findings of this study demonstrated the effect of several factors on primary healthcare accessibility, which will benefit the policymakers in healthcare planning in Saudi Arabia to improve the quality and accessibility to primary healthcare centers

A Comprehensive Survey on Routing and Security in Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks

With the continuous advances in mobile wirelesssensor networks (MWSNs), the research community hasresponded to the challenges and constraints in the design of thesenetworks by proposing efficient routing protocols that focus onparticular performance metrics such as residual energy utilization,mobility, topology, scalability, localization, data collection routing,Quality of Service (QoS), etc. In addition, the introduction ofmobility in WSN has brought new challenges for the routing,stability, security, and reliability of WSNs. Therefore, in thisarticle, we present a comprehensive and meticulous investigationin the routing protocols and security challenges in the theory ofMWSNs which was developed in recent years

Resource Efficient Authentication and Session Key Establishment Procedure for Low-Resource IoT Devices

open access journalThe Internet of Things (IoT) can includes many resource-constrained devices, with most usually needing to securely communicate with their network managers, which are more resource-rich devices in the IoT network. We propose a resource-efficient security scheme that includes authentication of devices with their network managers, authentication between devices on different networks, and an attack-resilient key establishment procedure. Using automated validation with internet security protocols and applications tool-set, we analyse several attack scenarios to determine the security soundness of the proposed solution, and then we evaluate its performance analytically and experimentally. The performance analysis shows that the proposed solution occupies little memory and consumes low energy during the authentication and key generation processes respectively. Moreover, it protects the network from well-known attacks (man-in-the-middle attacks, replay attacks, impersonation attacks, key compromission attacks and denial of service attacks)

Peanut Allergy: An Overview

<p/> <p>Peanut allergies have been increasing in prevalence in most industrialized countries. Onset is typically in early childhood, with a trend towards earlier ages of presentation. The allergy is lifelong in most affected children, although 15-22% will outgrow their peanut allergy, usually before their teenage years. Manifestations of peanut allergy range from mild to severe, and risk factors predisposing to severe reactions are discussed. However, even in the absence of risk factors, peanut allergic individuals may still experience life-threatening anaphylactic reactions. Approaches to investigation and treatment, patterns of cross-reactivity and possible causes of rising prevalence are discussed.</p