An investigation of educational provision for students with learning disabilities (LD)/ dyslexia in primary schools in Saudi Arabia: an ethnographic case study

Even though the first verse in the Holy Quran says explicitly “Read”, each year there are thousands of children in Saudi Arabia who fail to achieve their potential in education due to difficulties in reading, writing and spelling. This study investigates educational provision for learner with literacy skills difficulties in primary schools in Saudi Arabia. It further investigates participants’ perceptions towards the concept of dyslexia as a type of learning disability. This study is significant in the sense that it offers a unique educational perspective on this subject area as it will contribute to improving understanding of educational practices for students with LD/dyslexia in settings of spoken and written Arabic with a view to enhancing academic progress of the individuals with LD/dyslexia. Using an ethnographic case study approach, data have been collected from school staff, academic staff of University, student with LD/dyslexia and their parents. Semi-structured interviews, documents analysis and observations have been used as the principal methods of data collection. Data is being analysed using thematic analysis in order to interpret the relationship between the participants around the policy provision and practices that shape educational experiences of learners with LD/dyslexia in primary schools in Saudi Arabia

Effect of Human Resource Management Practices on Mobilization Behavior Mediating Role of Procedural Justice

The goal of this research was to determine the effect of HRM practices and the mediating role of Procedural justice on the mobilization behaviors of employees in the manufacturing sector. This study considered HRM practices those linked to human resources development of skills, evaluation and feedback on performance and information sharing. The study has descriptive-quantitative nature, using a structured questionnaire with 29 questions, carried through a random sample of 100 organizational employees. This study applied descriptive statistics and SEM techniques for the analysis of causal relationships. The results revealed that the hypothesis concerning the direct influence of competence development practices was confirmed, however, feedback on performance and information sharing had a positive effect on the behaviors, Similarly, the perception of procedural justice as a mediator in the information sharing practice, assessment and feedback on performance and Information sharing revealed significant influence on behavior, it was fully confirmed. These results indicate that mobilizing HRM practices may stimulate the adoption of positive behaviors by the employees of organization, but, however, may not be sufficient to improve them, if not also implemented practices of justice in which employees could develop feelings of deep emotional links to the institution and, consequently, improve relationships, motivation and collective performance

Patent regulation in North-South and South-South Trade Agreements

The article provides a comparative examination of patent provisions in both North-South and South-South Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). It assesses whether the flexibilities of World Trade Organization Agreement on trade-related aspect Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), are getting eliminated, preserved or affirmed in the studied PTAs. The article studies the PTAs of both the United States and European Union with developing countries as examples of North-South agreements, and the PTAs of both China and India with developing countries as examples of South-South agreements. The PTAs of US show systematic efforts to eliminate TRIPS flexibilities. EU chapters on IP engage partner countries to accede or comply with WIPO treaties in its earlier versions, and converge toward US approach in its latest versions. By contrast, China PTAs affirm commitment under TRIPS and emphasis some of its flexibilities. Patent related issues are absent from India’s PTAs

THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN OBESITY AND PERIODONTAL DISEASE

The American Journal of Public Health (2004) editorializes obesity as ‘the public health challenge of our time.’ Obesity creates risk for chronic health problems, is associated with increased mortality and exists in complexes of multiple, clustered behavioral risk factors. Fine (2004) identifies obesity among the four most common risk factors of chronic disease [cigarette smoking, risky drinking of alcohol, physical inactivity, overweight]. That set of risk factors applied to the 2001 National Health Interview Survey showed 17 percent (among 29,000) possessed three or more. Obesity with raised cholesterol and hypertension is the major cause of mortality and disease in Europe (James 2004) and is an issue for developing countries as well (Caballero 2001). Adipocytes in the adipose (fatty) tissues of obese people produce quantities of active molecules like leptin, important in regulating energy expenditure (thus body weight). Adipocyte-derived active molecules (adipocytokines) are candidates for the close association between obesity and multiple risk factor syndromes. Similarly periodontal disease is one of the world’s most common chronic diseases [possibly 35 percent of U.S. adults ages 30-40]. Increasing evidence establishes periodontal disease as a significant risk factor in the etiology of diseases with inflammatory components. [Severe periodontal disease is the well-established sixth complication of diabetes (Lőe 1993) and the relationship may be two-way (Grossi THE ASSOCIATION BETWEEN OBESITY AND PERIODONTAL DISEASE Ahmad Alshareef D.M.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2012 v 1998).] Obesity is a systemic disease predisposing to co-morbidities and complications that affect overall health; cross-sectional research suggests obesity is associated with periodontal diseases by underlying biologic mechanisms yet to be established. Linking evidence in the pathophysiology of both points toward inflammatory processes: The proinflammatory cytokine tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) is produced by adipocytes and the concentration of TNF-alpha is elevated in the obese, declining with weight loss. TNF-alpha suppresses insulin action via its specific receptor. Hence TNF-alpha exacerbates insulin resistance. The purpose of this research is to determine if subjects with obesity have a higher chance of developing periodontal disease, using statistical analyses of a retrospective review of the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine electronic health record [EHR]

An investigation into the effects of shape and structure on the antibacterial efficacy of metal nanoparticles

Increasing numbers of microbial organisms are becoming resistant to antibiotics, demonstrating a need for new, effective antibacterial agents. Metal nanoparticles (NPs) such as silver (AgNPs), copper (CuNPs) and gold (AuNPs) exhibit antimicrobial properties against bacteria, including Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecium. E. coli O157:H7, which is known to be virulent and infectious, causing bowel discomfort, diarrhoea, nausea or vomiting. Enterococci frequently causes gastrointestinal infections, urinary tract infections, hepatobiliary sepsis, endocarditis as well as hospital-acquired infections, e.g. nosocomial bacteraemia and surgical wound infection. As regards E. coli, NHS trusts in England reported 38,132 cases of bacteraemia between 1 April 2015 and 31 March 2016 (NHS, 2017). There was an overall increase in the incidence of bacteraemia caused by Enterococcus spp between 2010 and 2017, from 9.9 to 13.1 per 100,000 of the population in England respectively. The antibacterial activity of metal nanoparticles has been investigated extensively due to their high surface area-to-volume ratio and the generation of reactive oxygen species. Metal nanoparticles have potential as alternatives to current antimicrobials used in the hospital environment to combat Healthcare Associated Infections (HCAIs). Nanoparticles were synthesised using the chemical reduction method, where the size and shape were controlled via the precursor or reduction agent, reaction time, temperature and the molar ration between the precursor and reduction agent. Nanoparticles were characterised using ultra-violet/visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was used to assess the antimicrobial efficacy of metal NPs. The antimicrobial activity was then determined using growth inhibition kinetics by 96 well plate reader and viable counts. Visualisation of the interaction between metal NPs and bacteria were assessed using SEM. Different shapes of metal NPs were obtained in vitro such as spherical shape NPs (AgNS, AuNS and CuNS), octahedron (AgNOct and AuNOct) and cube shapes (CuNC). All produced NPs are crystalline in nature, confirmed by selected area electron diffraction. The MICs of AgNOct against E. coli were the lowest at 10μg/ml, followed by MICs of CuNC and AuNOct of 15 and 50μg/ml respectively. The MICs of spherical shape (AuNS) against E. faecium and E. coli were the highest at 250 and 230 μg/ml respectively. Significant (p ≤0.05) reductions of ≥8 log (10) CFU/mL and ≥5 log (10) CFU/mL were observed for E. coli and E. faecium respectively treated with AgNOct. While treatment of CuNC resulted in significant (p ≤0.05) reductions of 7.92 log (10) CFU/mL and 3.5 log (10) CFU/mL against E. coli and E. faecium respectively. Reduction data for spherically shaped NPs (AuNS and CuNS), the lowest inhibition, were reduced by ≥1.9 log(10) CFU/mL against E. faecium. Damage to the bacteria cell wall was observed under SEM after treatment with NPs, while the cellular integrity was lost following exposure to AgNOct, AuNOct and CuNC for 24 hours. The antimicrobial efficacy of NPs have been shown to be shape dependent against E. coli and E. faecium. Truncated octahedral AgNOct, AuNOct and cubic shape CuNC exhibited greater antibacterial activity when compared with spherical shape NPs (AgNS, AuNS and CuNS). AgNOct has the greatest antibacterial activity against E. coli and E. faecium compared with AuNOct and CuNC, being bactericidal against E.coli and bacteriostatic against E. faecium. The difference in shape resulted in differences in efficacy, which could possibly be due to the higher surface area and variations in active facets and surface energies. This higher reactivity may ultimately cause more rapid cell death. Among these metals (silver, gold and copper), silver nanoparticles show strong antibacterial activity against E. coli and E. faecium. It is suggested that this is caused by the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) at the cell wall affecting metabolic processes by damaging DNA reproduction

Model-based Approaches to Privacy Compliance

In the last decade, information technologies have been developing dramatically, and therefore data harvested via the Internet is growing rapidly. This technological change has a negative impact on privacy due to the sensitivity of the data collected and shared without convenient control or monitoring.\ua0The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union has been in effect for more than three years, limiting how organizations collect, manage, and handle personal data. The GDPR poses both new challenges and opportunities for technological institutions. In this work, we address various aspects of privacy and propose approaches that can overcome some challenges of the GDPR.\ua0We focus on improving two currently adopted approaches to leverage them to enforce some of the GDPR\u27s requirements by design.\ua0The first part of this work is devoted to developing an access control model to effectively capture the nature of information accessed and shared in online social networks (OSNs).\ua0They might raise serious problems in what concerns users\u27 privacy. One privacy risk is caused by accessing and sharing co-owned data items, i.e., when a user posts a data item that involves other users, some users\u27 privacy might be disclosed. Another risk is caused by the privacy settings offered by OSNs that do not, in general, allow fine-grained enforcement.\ua0We propose a collaborative access control framework to deal with such privacy issues. We also present a proof-of-concept implementation of our approach.In the second part of the thesis, we adopt Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) as a convenient representation to integrate privacy engineering activities into software design. DFDs are inadequate as a modeling tool for privacy, and there is a need to evolve them to be a privacy-aware approach.\ua0The first privacy-related lack that we solve is automatically inserting privacy requirements during design. Secondly, since DFDs have a hierarchical structure, we propose a refinement framework for DFDs that preserves structural and functional properties and the underlying privacy concepts. Finally, we take a step towards modeling privacy properties, and in particular purpose limitation, in DFDs, by defining a mathematical framework that elaborates how the purpose of a DFD should be specified, verified, or inferred. We provide proof-of-concept tools for all the proposed frameworks and evaluate them through case studies

Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation: The Next Frontier in Global Politics

National parliaments have become significantly active in international arena particularly in advancing democracy and national interests within a globalized context. This report assesses the role that inter-parliamentary organizations play in regional and global political scenes under the umbrella of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). The article views these regional institutions in the context of their relations to the IPU through content analysis of available literature. Three of the regional bodies of interest in the report are the Arab Parliament, Central American Parliament (PARLACEN), and the European Union Parliament. The findings drawn from available literature shows that these organizations have become the new frontier for political movements as they take center stage in global affairs. The objectives of these regional bodies are largely aligned with those of the IPU, and it is not surprising that they frequently collaborate or agree on several issues. The article concludes that the Inter-parliamentary diplomacy and the pursuit of democracy through collective efforts of regional parliamentary bodies have made it possible for IPU to have a higher political currency in different jurisdictions