A Proposed Framework for E-Commerce Usage and Competitive Advantage on Small and Medium Tourism Enterprises (SMTES) in Lebanon

E-commerce has tremendous potential for creating business opportunities, tourism as information intensive industry can gain important synergies from the use of e-commerce. Small and medium sized tourism enterprises should take advantage of the e-commerce and refocus their business strategies to maintain their competitiveness in order to avoid being replaced. This paper discusses the current literature on the e-commerce usage and competitive advantage in small and medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs), and proposes a conceptual framework to be tested in the context of Lebanon. This paper adopted a content analysis to examine number of articles that were published by major tourism and e-commerce usage journals. This paper provides a conceptual framework, which mainly based on the e-commerce readiness model, which has been used to assess the e-commerce usage at firms’ level. Also provides a revised ICDT model to explore how tourism enterprises are exploiting the internet spaces and to measure the level of sophisticated use of internet among tourism SMEs. This paper improves knowledge on how small tourism enterprises exploit Internet spaces (ICDT) to improve their competitiveness

Toward Livable City Centers. Hebron as a Case Study

City centers of Palestinian cities face many urban planning problems; the downtown city is mostly crowded especially in the last few years, because of the increasing population of the cities and the daily migration of the residents from the nearby villages. Everyone can touch the traffic jam problem, the bad quality of urban spaces, the lack of gardens and open spaces in the city center. All this affects negatively the citizens of the city, feeling uncomfortable in the city center. Thus, this study comes to light to draw guidelines to create a comfortable and livable urban environment for people in the city center and to develop the city center to a more environmental, functional, beautiful, attractive, healthier, walk-able and livable place. This will improve the quality of life for Palestinian citizens through the city center reflecting a legible image of the city, reducing environmental and visual pollution, solve traffic jam problems, solve mixed use problems, and enhance the social relations between the people themselves and between the urban spaces. To achieve the goal of this study, theories related to the subject are discussed, then Hebron city, the largest city of the West-Bank, is selected as a case study. An analysis of existing situation of Hebron city center is conducted in terms of land use, and transportation which will pave the way for suggesting a new structure of the city center forming basic guide lines for other city centers of Palestinian cities. This study is so important, to draw down new policies for municipalities related to city centers

Privatization and Its Impact on National Economy with a Close Look at Saudi Arabian Airlines

This thesis investigates the possibility of privatizing Saudi Arabian Airlines. The research study has been divided into different sections. The author investigates the privatization programs in airlines and airports. A number of airlines have been chosen to evaluate the effectiveness of privatization. An overview of Saudia regional performance was conducted. This was done to show the Saudia position among other regional carriers. The last chapter includes a regression analysis and empirical findings. The major finding of the research study concluded that Saudi Airlines would have been profitable if it had been privatized at the same time as British Airways. The research has very well supported the government of Saudi Arabia’s decision to privatize the national airline. To materialize the idea, a concrete and thorough study on Saudi Arabian Airlines’ financial and administrative condition has been conducted

Spatial Distribution, Sources, and Associated Risks of Toxic Metals In Red Sea Sediments Near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Coastal areas are known to be sequestration points for various pollutants generated from industrial and urban activities. Diverse anthropogenic pollutants are typically delivered to coastal sediments via atmospheric or fluvial processes. Heavy metals, such as chromium, copper, manganese, zinc, and lead, are some of the toxic contaminants of greatest concernbecause of their well-established detrimental effects on the marine environment. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has encouraged activities to bring about economic development, particularly along the Red Sea. Jeddah is located on the Red Sea and is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia, famous for its beautiful coral reef. In this dissertation, a variety of studies were applied not only to in situ sediment samples but also to aerosol particulate matter. The primary goal of the work is to determine the degree of heavy metal pollution in the region and, for key contaminants, identify their sources. The research plan in the dissertation included three phases that are discussed in the first chapter. The first phase included review of the literature, a field survey to design a sampling plan and identify thecollection sample points, and meetings with officials, including a Coast Guard representative to obtain the necessary permissions. The second phase involved collecting sediments and air filter samples and preparing the samples for laboratory analysis. The third phase comprised interpreting the results to obtain valuable relations between measured indices, and to determine the principal sources of pollution. Chapter 2 of this dissertation investigated the state of pollution in eighty sediments focusing on six heavy metals: chromium (Cr), manganese (Mn), nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), and lead (Pb). The study also quantified the degree of pollution in sediments using various risk indices, including Geo-accumulation Indices (Igeo), Enrichment factors (Ef), Contamination factors (Cf), Pollution Load Indices (PLI), Potential Ecological Risk Indices (PERI) and Potential Toxicity Response Indices (RI). Results showed that the majority of the polluted sediments were recorded in the Middle and Southlocations, and Pb showed the highest concentration of the metals in the study area (77.34 mg/kg). The Igeo values for Pb in the Middle stations showed that 10% of the stations were categorized as moderately polluted, whereas 20% of the South location was classified as moderately polluted. The RI values in the South stations, especially the northern stations within the South location, indicate high Pb pollution in the area. This study recommended that appropriate management strategies should be applied for the Jeddah Coast to control potential pollution sources and prevent permanent hazards to marine ecology currently documented elsewhere. Additionally, the study implicated that the area needs more tracer studies such as isotopic and speciation studies that could be used to investigate the sources of the Pb in sediments, water, and even in airborne aerosols near the shoreline. The findings of chapter 2 led us to study Pb isotopes in the sediment samples and the results are described in chapter 3. For the first time in the Red Sea area, the Pb isotopic ratios of 206Pb, 207Pb, and 208Pb were examined to evaluate the sources of Pb. A two end-member model and a three component fractional contribution model were both used to identify possible Pb sources and their percentage contributions in the study area. The isotopic data and modeling show that natural and anthropogenic sources such as gasoline and an identified unknown source contribute to the Pb load of Jeddah\u27s sediments. The most obvious finding to emerge from this study is that different activities were controlling the Pb isotopes for each location. The study concluded that the Middle location was the most effected location by the Pb from different sources, and the Ef outcomes revealed that 80% of the sediment samples were considered extremely severely enriched with Pb. This study has raised many topics of concern in need of further investigation, including the ratio of Pb isotopes in air samples to Pb isotopes in the soil and isotopic variance with time, presumably recorded in sediment cores. Finally, in chapter 4, the concentration of the heavy metals of particulate matter (PM) with a size less than 2.5micrometers is determined. The results of this study indicate that the PM2.5 concentration was higher in the North location,and the Pb concentration was higher in the Middle location. The results of the backward trajectory analysis help us understand the sudden concentration increase of PM on August 2 and September 13, 2017. On those dates, Jeddah\u27satmosphere was affected by a massive dust storms originating in the Tokar Desert in northeastern Sudan. According to Principle Component Analysis (PCA) results, the four principal sources of the heavy metals in the Jeddah ambient air were particles originating from the marine aerosol and re-suspension of soil-derived particles, particles originating from the land in addition to the anthropogenic contribution of Fe, particles originating from oil combustion, and particles originating from incineration and fossil fuel combustion. The outcomes of the dissertation provide the spatial mapping of the distribution of heavy metals as well as their possible sources. This will help develop pollution control measures and serve as a resource for choosing optimum remediationmethods for water and sediments on the Saudi Arabian coast of the Red Sea. Taken together, the findings of each chapterare impactful and have many important implications for future practice

Comparison of Sport Competitive Anxiety Levels of Saudi Arabian National Team Athletes with and without Disabilities in Competitions

Anxiety in sport is complex and can lead to a number of undesirable consequences such as burnout, performance difficulties, interpersonal problems, and injury. The purpose of this study was to compare whether significant differences existed in the levels of somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption between individuals of the Saudi Arabian national team with and without disabilities in competitions. In addition, differences in somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption were examined between athletes in an individual or team sport. The Sport Anxiety Sale (SAS-2, Smith et. al, 2006) was employed to measure the subscales of somatic anxiety, worry, and consternation disruption. Participants were 120 Saudi Arabian national team athletes with and without disabilities who participated in competitions during the 2010 competitive season. Sixty Saudi Arabian national team athletes with disabilities from four different sports (track and field, table tennis, wheelchair basketball and volleyball) were surveyed. Another 60 Saudi Arabian national team athletes without disabilities who competed in the same four sports were also surveyed. Athletes\u27 ages ranged from 18-35 years. Furthermore, athletes varied in their level of competitive experience. Results of the multivariate analysis indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between athletes with and without disabilities or between individual and team sport participants in their levels of somatic anxiety, worry, and concentration disruption

Toward Livable City Centers. Hebron as a Case Study

City centers of Palestinian cities face many urban planning problems; the downtown city is mostly crowded especially in the last few years, because of the increasing population of the cities and the daily migration of the residents from the nearby villages. Everyone can touch the traffic jam problem, the bad quality of urban spaces, the lack of gardens and open spaces in the city center. All this affects negatively the citizens of the city, feeling uncomfortable in the city center. Thus, this study comes to light to draw guidelines to create a comfortable and livable urban environment for people in the city center and to develop the city center to a more environmental, functional, beautiful, attractive, healthier, walk-able and livable place. This will improve the quality of life for Palestinian citizens through the city center reflecting a legible image of the city, reducing environmental and visual pollution, solve traffic jam problems, solve mixed use problems, and enhance the social relations between the people themselves and between the urban spaces. To achieve the goal of this study, theories related to the subject are discussed, then Hebron city, the largest city of the West-Bank, is selected as a case study. An analysis of existing situation of Hebron city center is conducted in terms of land use, and transportation which will pave the way for suggesting a new structure of the city center forming basic guide lines for other city centers of Palestinian cities. This study is so important, to draw down new policies for municipalities related to city centers

Towards a text-linguistic definition of Qur'anic inimitability : a discourse perspective and problems of translation

Abstract unavailable please refer to PD

Joint Modelling of Longitudinal Measurements and Time-To-Event Data : Application to HIV Study

Longitudinal and survival data are frequently collected in biomedical studies. The research questions of interest in these studies often require separate analysis of the outcomes. But in many occasions interest also lies in studying their association structures, such as in biomarker research, where the clinical studies are designed to identify biomarkers with strong prognostic capabilities for event time outcomes. In the separate analyses, a linear mixed-effects model is used for modeling the longitudinal data to study the changing trend of the response overtime when controlling some covariates and a survival model is used to model the time-to-event data. A common issue in longitudinal studies is that informative dropout in the data can cause bias in the analysis. Associations between longitudinal and survival data can occur in the explanatory variables or through stochastic dependence between the subject-specific random effect component of the longitudinal model and the survival model. Ignoring the association between the longitudinal and survival data can result in biased inference. The joint model can account for these issues and simultaneously analyze the longitudinal and time-to-event data. This approach enables researchers to obtain more accurate inference regarding the survival probability to certain event when the longitudinal responses associated with the survival response or outcome-dependent study dropout. In an HIV/AIDS study, our primary interest is to compare the survival for the patients with two antiretroviral drugs, Didanosine (ddl) and Zalcitabine (ddC) with some other risk factors. We also want to determine how the biomarker-CD4 lymphocyte cell counts changed over the period of the study. We use separate analysis and the joint model to analyze the survival and longitudinal outcome and then compare the two analysis results. In the longitudinal analysis, we used a linear mixed-effects model to fit the CD4 cell counts using a random intercept and slope for the observation time. In the survival analysis, we compared the survival between the two treatment groups by using a cox-proportional hazard model. Then a joint model was fitted by using the fitted longitudinal and survival objects. To compare the separate analysis and the joint analysis, we use the Akaike’s Information Criteria (AIC). The joint model was shown to be better than the separate analyses of the longitudinal models and survival models with a smaller AIC value. Using the joint model for inference on the HIV study, Zalcitabine (ddC) was significantly effective in reducing a person’s risk of death. The risk of death was 1.44 times as likely for patients assigned to ddl as compared to the patients assigned to ddC. The previous diagnosis result and observation time were significant predictors of the change in CD4 cell count at a 0.05 significance level. A patient having a previous diagnosis of AIDS at the study entry led to a decrease in CD4 cell counts thus, a patient was more likely to die or the disease progressed. The joint model showed a significant association between the CD4 count and survival: with higher CD4 count, the survival probability is also significantly higher (or the hazard of death is lower). The joint model approach provided more accurate inference than the separate approaches for the HIV study