Argumentation and Poetry: A Pragmatic Literary Study of the Diwan Group’s Poetic Discourse

This study seeks to consider argumentative discourse in poetry, and to attempt to detect the arguments in the poetic discourse of the Diwan Group in the light of their principles, trying to present a different insight into the examination of modern Arabic poetry by exploring its ability to persuade and influence. The study applies the argumentation theory to the Diwan Group’s poetic output by attempting to answer the question of how the three members of the Diwan Group imbued their poems through the process of argumentation. The study aims to reveal the effectiveness of argumentation in the structure of the group’s poetic discourse considering the presuppositions. This means that the concept of poetry and critical works of the three members of the Diwan Group could be presupposed to be ‘ideal’ and any poetic analysis is made in the light of this concept. In other words, the study highlights the argumentative process in order to illustrate how the Diwan Group’s trend towards the romantic rebelled against the Classical school. By applying the theory of argumentation to the poetic output, it would essentially mean that the poem seeks to create a special meaning through language in the communicative process between the poet and the reader. This process is the essence of the theory of argumentation: to persuade the reader of the argument and to reach the desired result through justification and evidence. As the meaning of each of the selected poems is significant and considerable, this study relies on the pragmatics method, where argumentation itself is an essential branch of pragmatics. The pragmatic approach examines how the purposes of the writer (or speaker) are detected by the receiver. It considers literary works as essential verbal works that have been expanded to encourage the addressee to full persuasion. It can be seen that pragmatics is based on the study of the meaning that the speaker or writer wants to communicate and the listener or reader explains. It is worth noting that both the pragmatic approach and the theory of argumentation endeavour to throw light on the characteristics and implications of literary discourse in different genres, based on communication between two parties. As the title suggests, this study is designed coherently in three parts: The Foundation, the Structure of Argumentation and the Structure of Poetry respectively. Part I includes two chapters; the introductory chapter and the background of both the Group and Theory which considers the dialectic of Argumentation and Poetry. Chapter Three, the first in part II, discusses the Constituents of Argumentation by studying three aspects; the bonds of convergence between Argumentation and Romanticism, repetition and finally, poetic dialogue. Chapter Four covers the Patterns of Argumentation, which are: Syllogism, Fallacy, and thirdly, Argumentation by Example. Chapter Five, the first in part III, conducts a deeper analysis into the common-places where arguments are found, which are Love, Meditation and Nature. Each poetic theme is divided into related arguments. Chapter Six examines Argumentative Images through a theoretical preface concerning the link between imaginary and argumentation, following by the Sources of Argumentative images through Human being, Nature, Religion and Philosophy. Finally, the Functions of images of Wisdom and comparison are examined. Chapter Seven presents the Conclusion, which summarises the most important points deduced from the study and the recommendations made. Finally, as I have studied the group’s poetic material, I have found that one of them can simultaneously be regarded as a poet, writer and critic; and that argumentation was the ideal way for the poets to disseminate their ideas and principles. Moreover, it can concluded that the poetic discourse of the Diwan Group’s focus concerns two aspects: the critical and the poetic. The critical element relies on the poets’ critique (especially that of the revival poets), that clarifies the nature of poetry, and the impact of emotion on it, as well as portraying both Life and Self in various aspects. The poetic discourse that was formed in the first fruits of the 'new poetry' was an attempt to replace Classical poems with another focus that was related to emotion and Romanticism

Coreference Resolution for Arabic

Recently, there has been enormous progress in coreference resolution. These recent developments were applied to Chinese, English and other languages, with outstanding results. However, languages with a rich morphology or fewer resources, such as Arabic, have not received as much attention. In fact, when this PhD work started there was no neural coreference resolver for Arabic, and we were not aware of any learning-based coreference resolver for Arabic since [Björkelund and Kuhn, 2014]. In addition, as far as we know, whereas lots of attention had been devoted to the phemomenon of zero anaphora in languages such as Chinese or Japanese, no neural model for Arabic zero-pronoun anaphora had been developed. In this thesis, we report on a series of experiments on Arabic coreference resolution in general and on zero anaphora in particular. We propose a new neural coreference resolver for Arabic, and we present a series of models for identifying and resolving Arabic zero pronouns. Our approach for zero-pronoun identification and resolution is applicable to other languages, and was also evaluated on Chinese, with results surpassing the state of the art at the time. This research also involved producing revised versions of standard datasets for Arabic coreference

Social media in language learning: Perceptions of Saudi students

The current literature on students’ perceptions towards the use of Social Media (SM) for language learning reports mixed findings. While some studies indicate learners’ positive perceptions towards using SM for academic purposes (e.g., Bani-Hani et al., 2014; Borau et al., 2009; Cheng, 2012; Lee & Markey, 2014), others suggest that learners’ perceptions might vary as a result of their proficiency in the language (e.g., Gamble & Wilkins, 2014). In addition, there is evidence that suggests students have negative attitudes towards the use of SM for educational purposes (Venkatesh et al., 2016). The current study aims to investigate Saudi students’ attitudes towards the use of SM (WhatsApp, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter) for learning English as a foreign language. One hundred adult learners from a university in Saudi Arabia participated in this mixed-methods study, stratified among two proficiency levels: beginners and advanced. Data collection instruments consisted of individual surveys and interviews. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that there are differences between beginner and advanced students in their perceptions of the usefulness of SM applications for language learning, but not in their affective feelings towards SM use outside the classroom, nor their choice of SM application to use for learning. Frequency counts indicated that the groups’ choices of SM varied according to different language purposes and the skills to be learned (e.g., they preferred WhatsApp for communication with family and friends, Twitter for reading, and Snapchat for learning aural skills). Further qualitative analysis revealed advanced learners’ disinclination towards using SM for academic purposes, considering it to be used solely for personal reasons. The research also reports students’ perceived advantages and disadvantages of using these technologies for language learning

A survey on data confidentiality and privacy in cloud computing

Cloud computing is often referred to as the technology of the decade. Current Cloud systems present critical limitations to protecting users' data confidentiality. This survey presents a review of the three essential data security attributes in the context of Cloud computing, namely, availability, integrity and confidentiality. It explores numerous research efforts to enhance the security and privacy of data in the Cloud with a focus on maintaining data confidentiality. Recent solutions are critically analysed, and their advantages and limitations are discussed. The paper finishes with a discussion on the future research opportunities and challenges on data confidentiality in the Cloud

Wind Energy Assessment Using Weibull Distribution with Different Numerical Estimation Methods: A Case Study

The demand for electrical energy is increasing every day, which is one of the critical challenges facing the world today. Hence, the necessity of turning to clean renewable energy sources that are not harmful to the environment as an alternative to the traditional generation based on fossil fuels has become more important than ever before. Wind power is one of the renewable sources that provides a clean solution to generate electricity. In this context, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia announces renewable energy projects to generate 9 GW from wind in 2032. Hence, the aim of this paper is to investigate the most suitable method of Weibull parameter estimation in order to predict wind characteristics and employ it for wind energy assessment in the Qassim region located in the center of the country. In this study, wind data is collected from NASA's forecasts of global energy resources for 2010–2015 based on their availability at altitudes of 10m and 50m and analyzed by using six different methods for Weibull parameter estimation: the graphical method (GM), standard deviation method (SDM), energy pattern factor method (EPF), moment method (MM), alternative maximum likelihood method (AMLM), and novel energy pattern factor method (NEPF). The efficiency of each method is tested by calculating the root mean square error (RMSE) and the relative wind power density error (RPDE). The comparison shows that the most appropriate method for estimating wind power density in the country is the Moment Method (MM), with the lowest RPDE ratio equal to 0.2018%. It has been found that the wind power density in the Qassim region falls into the class 1 category, as it is less than 100 W/m2 at a height of 10m and less than 200 W/m2at an altitude of 50m. The results show the region is only suitable for small off-grid projects. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2023-07-06-024 Full Text: PD

Cross-Lingual Zero Pronoun Resolution

In languages like Arabic, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, and many others, predicate arguments in certainsyntactic positions are not realized instead of being realized as overt pronouns, and are thus called zero- or null-pronouns. Identifyingand resolving such omitted arguments is crucial to machine translation, information extraction and other NLP tasks, but depends heavilyonsemanticcoherenceandlexicalrelationships. WeproposeaBERT-basedcross-lingualmodelforzeropronounresolution,andevaluateit on the Arabic and Chinese portions of OntoNotes 5.0. As far as we know, ours is the first neural model of zero-pronoun resolutionfor Arabic; and our model also outperforms the state-of-the-art for Chinese. In the paper we also evaluate BERT feature extraction andfine-tune models on the task, and compare them with our model. We also report on an investigation of BERT layers indicating whichlayer encodes the most suitable representation for the task. Our code is available at https://github.com/amaloraini/cross-lingual-Z

Characterization and Gamma-ray Shielding Performance of Calcinated and Ball-Milled Calcinated Bentonite Clay Nanoparticles

The current investigation deals with the fabrication of two various composite-based bentonite clay minerals. The characterization and radiation shielding parameters for the two fabricated composites (calcinated and ball-milled calcinated bentonite) were studied. X-ray diffraction was utilized to illustrate the crystalline phase of the fabricated composites. Furthermore, Williamson and Hall’s method was used to determine the grain size of both the calcinated and ball-milled calcinated composites. The particle size, according to the calculation was 39.84 nm, and the strain was 0.216 for the calcinated bentonite, while the particle size of the ball-milled bentonite was 26.96 nm, and the strain was 0.219. In comparison, the transmission electron microscope (TEM) showed that the grain size of the calcinated bentonite was 566.59 nm, and it was 296.21 nm for the ball-milled calcinated bentonite. The density of the fabricated composites varied between 1.60 and 186 g/cm3 for the calcinated bentonite and between 1.83 and 2.075 g/cm3 for the ball-milled calcinated bentonite. Moreover, the radiation shielding capacity of the composites was analyzed. The results show that the gamma-ray attenuation capacity of ball-milled calcinated bentonite is high compared to ordinary calcinated bentonite. These results confirm the effect of particle grain size on optimizing the gamma-ray shielding capacity of the fabricated materials. © 2022 by the authors.Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, PNU: PNURSP2022R57The authors express their gratitude to Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Researchers Supporting Project number (PNURSP2022R57), Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The Role of La2O3 in Enhancement the Radiation Shielding Efficiency of the Tellurite Glasses: Monte‐Carlo Simulation and Theoretical Study

The radiation shielding competence was examined for a binary glass system xLa2O3 + (1 − x) TeO2 where x = 5, 7, 10, 15, and 20 mol% using MCNP‐5 code. The linear attenuation coefficients (LACs) of the glasses were evaluated, and it was found that LT20 glass has the greatest LAC, while LT5 had the least LAC. The transmission factor (TF) of the glasses was evaluated against thicknesses at various selected energies and was observed to greatly decrease with increasing thickness; for example, at 1.332 MeV, the TF of the LT5 glass decreased from 0.76 to 0.25 as the thickness increased from 1 to 5 cm. The equivalent atomic number (Zeq) of the glasses gradually increased with increasing photon energy above 0.1 MeV, with the maximum values observed at around 1 MeV. The buildup factors were determined to evaluate the accumulation of photon flux, and it was found that the maximum values for both can be seen at around 0.8 MeV. This research concluded that LT20 has the greatest potential in radiation shielding applications out of the investigated glasses due to the glass having the most desirable parameters. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Funding: This research was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University through the Fast‐track Research Funding Program to support publication in the top journal (Grant No. 42‐FTTJ‐77)

Influence of Li2O Incrementation on Mechanical and Gamma-Ray Shielding Characteristics of a TeO2-As2O3-B2O3 Glass System

According to the Makishema–Mackenzie model assumption, the dissociation energy and packing density for a quaternary TeO2-As2O3-B2O3-Li2O glass system were evaluated. The dissociation energy rose from 67.07 to 71.85 kJ/cm3, whereas the packing factor decreased from 16.55 to 15.21 cm3/mol associated with the replacement of TeO2 by LiO2 compounds. Thus, as a result, the elastic moduli (longitudinal, shear, Young, and bulk) were enhanced by increasing the LiO2 insertion. Based on the estimated elastic moduli, mechanical properties such as the Poisson ratio, microhard-ness, longitudinal velocity, shear velocity, and softening temperature were evaluated for the investigated glass samples. In order to evaluate the studied glasses’ gamma-ray shield capacity, the MCNP-5 code, as well as a theoretical Phy-X/PSD program, were applied. The best shielding capacity was achieved for the glass system containing 25 mol% of TeO2, while the lowest ability was obtained for the glass sample with a TeO2 concentration of 5 mol%. Furthermore, a correlation between the studied glasses’ microhardness and linear attenuation coefficient was performed versus the LiO2 concentration to select the glass sample which possesses a suitable mechanical and shielding capacity. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.This research was funded by the Deanship of Scientific Research at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University through the Fast-track Research Funding Program to support publication in a top journal (Grant no. 42-FTTJ-67)

Design and Gamma-Ray Attenuation Features of New Concrete Materials for Low- and Moderate-Photons Energy Protection Applications

We aimed, in this investigation, to prepare novel concretes which can be used in gamma-ray shielding applications. The experimental approach was performed using a NaI (Tl) detector to measure the concrete’s shielding features for different energies, ranging from 0.081 MeV to 1.408 MeV. The density of the fabricated concretes decreased with increasing W/C ratio, where the density decreased by 2.680 g/cm3, 2.614 g/cm3, and 2.564 g/cm3 for concretes A, B, and C, respectively, with increases in the W/C ratio of 0.4, 0.6, and 0.8, respectively. When the energy was elevated between 0.08 MeV and 1.408 MeV, the highest values were attained for concrete A, with values ranging between 0.451 cm−1 and 0.179 cm−1. The lowest half-value layer (Δ0.5) values were achieved for concrete C, where the Δ0.5 values varied between 1.53 cm and 3.86 cm between 0.08 MeV and 1.408 MeV. The highest Δ0.5 values were achieved for concrete A, where the Δ0.5 varied between 1.77 cm and 4.67 cm between 0.08 MeV and 1.408 MeV. According to this investigation, concrete A has the highest promise in radiation shielding purposes because it has the most desirable properties of the concretes studied. © 2022 by the authors.Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University, PNU: PNURSP2022R57The authors express their gratitude to Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University Researchers Supporting Project number (PNURSP2022R57), Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia