Solving the mystery of mobile learning adoption in higher education

The rapid expansion in users of mobile devices, particularly among university students, makes mobile learning (m-learning) the modern style of learning for the new millennium. Thus, it is important to identify and explore the factors that may influence students' intention to use m-learning. In Jordan, research on mobile learning adoption is still very narrow. For the purpose of this study, we propose a framework that is based on the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) model, to explore the potential factors that may impact students' intention to acceptance and use of m-learning in developing countries such as Jordan. The proposed framework is empirically tested using a total of 444 paper-based questionnaires, collected from students at four Jordanian universities. The results reveal that effort expectancy, performance expectancy, trust expectancy, self-management of learning, system functionality and social influence are significant determinants of m-learning adoption, and explain 64.8% of the variance in the students' intentions to adopt m-learning. Gender and uncertainty avoidance are found to have moderating effects on some of the relationships of the research model. These findings offer multiple useful implications for m-learning adoption, in terms of both research and practice

Share-Option Based Compensation Expense, Shareholder Returns and Financial Crisis

This paper contributes to the literature that analyses the relationship between Share-Option Based Compensation (SOBC) expense and shareholder returns. It utilises a sample of financial firms listed in the European Economic Area and Switzerland between 2005 and 2016 to make inferences about the impact of the financial crisis on the above-mentioned relationship. The paper also assesses the extent to which the relationship between SOBC expense and shareholder returns during the financial crisis varies with ownership concentration. We find evidence that the positive relationship between SOBC expense and shareholder returns is significantly more apparent during the financial crisis. This suggests that investors place more emphasis on the unrecognised intangible features of SOBC contracts during the crisis, even though their associated expenses are subject to managerial discretion and measurement errors. We also find that the positive relationship between SOBC expense and shareholder returns over the financial crisis is more pronounced when ownership is more concentrated. The results of our study are robust after controlling for firm size, potential investment growth opportunities, traditional banking activities and firm self-selection bias

FAKTOR RISIKO KONDISI HUNIAN TERHADAP KEJADIAN PENYAKIT KUSTA DI KOTA MAKASSAR

Penyakit kusta merupakan penyakit menular yang disebabkan oleh bakteri Mycrobacterium leprae. Menurut World Health Organization (WHO) jumlah kasus kusta di dunia pada tiga bulan pertama tahun 2013 sebanyak 189.018 kasus sedangkan di Indonesia terdapat 23.169 kasus baru pada tahun 2012. Sulawesi Selatan pada tahun 2013 ditemukan 746 kasus serta di Kota Makassar terdapat 128 kasus baru pada tahun 2013. Penelitian bertujuan mengetahui faktor risiko kondisi hunian terhadap kejadian penyakit kusta berdasarkan ventilasi, dinding, lantai, dan kepadatan hunian. Jenis penelitian adalah analitik observasional dengan pendekatan case control study. Estimasi jumlah sampel minimal dihitung berdasarkan rumus Lemeshow. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah seluruh masyarakat yang berdomisili di 26 wilayah kerja puskesmas di Kota Makassar. Sampel kasus adalah penderita kusta dan sampel kontrol adalah tetangga kasus yang bukan penderita kusta. Besar sampel sebanyak 180 responden, terdiri dari 90 kasus dan 90 kontrol. Hasil uji statistik menunjukkan bahwa ventilasi (OR=2,19;95% CI:1,06-4,54), dinding (OR=4,68;95% CI:2,45-8,91), dan kepadatan hunian (OR=4,20;95% CI:2,22-7,95) merupakan faktor risiko sedangkan variabel lantai dengan (OR=2,07;95% CI 0,50-8,53) merupakan faktor risiko namun tidak bermakna secara statistik. Kesimpulan dari penelitian ini bahwa variabel ventilasi, dinding, dan kepadatan hunian merupakan faktor risiko kejadian penyakit kusta

Energy Efficient QoS Routing Protocol for Handling Hidden Nodes in in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) are comprised of sensor nodes that form the momentary network and do not rely on the support of any orthodox centralized infrastructure or administration. Such a given situation mandates every sensor node to get the support of other sensor nodes to advance the packets to the desired destination node, and specifically to the sink node. In this poster, we introduce energy efficient quality of service protocol for WMSNs, in this work the focus will be to study hidden node problems in WMSNs (Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks) and how it can affect the network performance

Jordanian Women’s Political Participation: On the Verge of Arab Spring

Recent decades in Jordan have witnessed considerable changes in women’s roles in the political sphere and in the community. Jordan has passed, modified, or adopted legislation that fosters the rights of women and the abolition of discrimination against them. Women experienced real visibility in higher leadership positions with 10.8% in the lower house and 11.7% in the senate. Yet, while women earn higher levels of education, their participation in the labor market is relatively low, and those who want to join the labor force meet higher levels of unemployment. Although women have made real progress in the public sphere, their participation is still modest and needs to be fostered and enhanced. More needs to be done to educate Jordanian women on political participation, and on overcoming various obstacles that hinder their efforts towards more visible and effective roles

An Optimized Hidden Node Detection Paradigm for Improving the Coverage and Network Efficiency in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

Successful transmission of online multimedia streams in wireless multimedia sensor networks (WMSNs) is a big challenge due to their limited bandwidth and power resources. The existing WSN protocols are not completely appropriate for multimedia communication. The effectiveness of WMSNs varies, and it depends on the correct location of its sensor nodes in the field. Thus, maximizing the multimedia coverage is the most important issue in the delivery of multimedia contents. The nodes in WMSNs are either static or mobile. Thus, the node connections change continuously due to the mobility in wireless multimedia communication that causes an additional energy consumption, and synchronization loss between neighboring nodes. In this paper, we introduce an Optimized Hidden Node Detection (OHND) paradigm. The OHND consists of three phases: hidden node detection, message exchange, and location detection. These three phases aim to maximize the multimedia node coverage, and improve energy efficiency, hidden node detection capacity, and packet delivery ratio. OHND helps multimedia sensor nodes to compute the directional coverage. Furthermore, an OHND is used to maintain a continuous node– continuous neighbor discovery process in order to handle the mobility of the nodes. We implement our proposed algorithms by using a network simulator (NS2). The simulation results demonstrate that nodes are capable of maintaining direct coverage and detecting hidden nodes in order to maximize coverage and multimedia node mobility. To evaluate the performance of our proposed algorithms, we compared our results with other known approaches.http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s1609143

Environmental Work and Peace Work: The Palestinian-Israeli Case

This paper, based on a larger study that was carried out by a joint Palestinian – Israeli research team before and during the Al Aqsa Intifada, examines Israeli and Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that have worked on joint environmental projects. We focus here on three jointly run Palestinian – Israeli NGOs, 16 Israeli organizations and 12 Palestinian organizations that engaged in cooperative work, looking at the kind of work they did, their perceptions of the causes of environmental damage and its connection to the conflict, their perceptions of the roles of NGOs within their societies, and obstacles encountered in cooperative work. Data about the NGOs were collected through face-to-face audio taped interviews, their publications, and from their websites. Results showed that while the Israeli and Palestinian NGOs agree that joint work is needed to address ecological problems, they differ in their reasons for working together, their perceptions of the sources of environmental deterioration, the roles that NGOs should be taking within their society, the relationship of the Israeli – Palestinian conflict to the state of the environment, and the effect that a final peace agreement would have on solving these problems. It was concluded that the “environmental narratives” of the two sides differ greatly, and that the establishment of a “culture of peace” is a very long-term process

Antimicrobial activity of selected phytochemicals against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus and their biofilms

Bacteria can be resistant to multiple antibiotics and we are fast approaching a time when antibiotics will not work on some bacterial infections. New antimicrobial compounds are urgently necessary. Plants are considered the greatest source to obtain new antimicrobials. This study aimed to assess the antimicrobial activity of four phytochemicals—7-hydroxycoumarin (7-HC), indole-3-carbinol (I3C), salicylic acid (SA) and saponin (SP)—against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, either as planktonic cells or as biofilms. These bacteria are commonly found in hospital-acquired infections. Some aspects on the phytochemicals mode of action, including surface charge, hydrophobicity, motility and quorum-sensing inhibition (QSI) were investigated. In addition, the phytochemicals were combined with three antibiotics in order to assess any synergistic effect. 7-HC and I3C were the most effective phytochemicals against E. coli and S. aureus. Both phytochemicals affected the motility and quorum-sensing (QS) activity, which means that they can play an important role in the interference of cell-cell interactions and in biofilm formation and control. However, total biofilm removal was not achieved with any of the selected phytochemicals. Dual combinations between tetracycline (TET), erythromycin (ERY) and ciprofloxacin (CIP) and I3C produced synergistic effects against S. aureus resistant strains. The overall results demonstrates the potential of phytochemicals to control the growth of E. coli and S. aureus in both planktonic and biofilm states. In addition, the phytochemicals demonstrated the potential to act synergistically with antibiotics, contributing to the recycling of old antibiotics that were once considered ineffective due to resistance problems.This work was supported by the Operational Program for Competitiveness Factors-COMPETE and by Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology through Project PhytodisinfectantsPTDC/ DTP-SAP/1078/2012 (COMPETE: FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-028765), the PhD grant awarded to Ana Abreu (SFRH/BD/84393/2012) and the Post-Doc grants awarded to Anabela Borges (SFRH/BPD/98684/2013) and Lucia Simoes (SFRH/BPD/81982/2011). Also, this work was undertaken as part of the European Research Project SusClean (Contract n_ FP7-KBBE-2011-5, project number: 287514) and the COST Action FA1202. The authors are solely responsible for this work. It does not represent the opinion of the Community, and the Community is not responsible for any use that might be made of data appearing herein