PhD Dissertations

In the last two decades, the Jordanian economy has faced several economic challenges. The government of Jordan has consistently endeavoured to define a clear path encompassing regulatory adjustments, structural reforms, and incentives aimed at enhancing economic growth and development, as well as improving the business and investment environment for both domestic and foreign enterprises. However, despite these regulatory adjustments and procedures, the Jordanian economy still faces significant problems. Firstly, there has been a decline in FDI inflows; secondly, rising inflation; and thirdly, the Syrian crisis has affected the Jordanian economy adversely. Hence, the aims of this study are First, to determine the effectiveness of monetary policy to stabilize the inflation rate. second, to examine the effects of monetary policy on FDI inflow. third, to assess the effects of the Syrian crisis on the Jordanian economy. This study employs SVAR methodology for the first objective while the ARDL bound test approach is used for the second and third objectives, over the period 1980 to 2021. Results show that, first, monetary policy significantly affects inflation. Second, the monetary policy significantly influences FDI inflow. The shock in the money supply has a positive significant effect on attracting foreign direct investment, while the shock in interest rate has a significant negative effect. Lastly, the Syrian crisis has had a negative effect on the Jordanian economy. Precisely, the Syrian crisis influx harms the Jordan's output growth through imports, inflation, and unemployment. Based on these results, the study recommends that the Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) should consider tight monetary policy as a stabilization tool to mitigate the negative effects of external shocks on the domestic economy. Secondly, to control the negative effects of the Syrian crisis on output growth, the Jordanian government should employ a diplomatic strategy to resolve the conflict between the Syrian government and the Syrian opposition. Finally, Jordan should strengthen its trade relations with other countries and reorganize its economic policies to attract foreign investors.

Mobile learning (in-learning) is considered as the next form of e-learnin

There are two widely accepted approaches used to predict the stock price of a business’s equity. The accounting approach assumes that the predictive ability of a company's earnings out-performs the cash flows to predict share prices. A financial model assumes that cash flows are a better tool for forecasting future stock prices. The motivation of this paper is to discover whether the accrual accounting components or the cash flow components provide a better explanation for estimating the share price of non-financial companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange (SSE), an emerging capital market of Saudi Arabia during various economic conditions; pre-global financial crisis, during the global financial crisis and after the global financial crisis. Five hypotheses were developed and regression analysis was used to test the hypothesized relationships. Annual data used in this study were collected from the financial statements of 90 non-financial companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Saudi Arabia from 2007 to 2011. The regression results found that the accrual components have a better predictive power than cash flow components to forecast Saudi stock prices before, during and after the global financial crisis. In addition, accrual components are incrementally informative beyond cash flow components in predicting share prices during the crisis period and non-crisis. Furthermore, the results also led to a conclusion that there is sufficient evidence to prove that the accrual components are more persistent than the cash flow components in explaining the variations of the share price before, during and after the global financial crisis. The results of this thesis can be used as evidence to support the theory in financial analysis such as the efficient markets theory, the free cash flow theory, the traditional financial theory and the theory underlying the relationship between earnings and stock price.

The study aimed at understanding the effectiveness of the social and affective Language Learning Strategies (LLSs) in learning Finnish, acculturation difficulties, views, and experiences of nine (9) adult Arab low-literate and illiterate learners of Finnish as a Second Language (FSL). The participants are new comer immigrants living in Finland and learning Finnish is part of the integration programme administered by the Finnish Ministry of Labour and Economy. Adult immigrants, in general, find it difficult to deal with the daily life requirements in Finland in which Finnish language deemed essential. For example, adult immigrants must know how to deal with the semi-daily paper-based correspondence that contains notifications and appointments from different Finnish departments, such as social service or medical centres. Moreover, attending Finnish language courses for this category of learners is compulsory and the social benefit, the monthly monetary incentives the participants receive, is completely based on these courses. The participants received explicit training in social and affective Language Learning Strategy (LLS) use. They learned the benefits of using these strategies and how they promote learning Finnish if used properly. A qualitative case study approach was adopted and classroom observation and interview were conducted for data collection. Moreover, Oxford’s (1989) SILL and The Acculturation Index were utilised to support the qualitative data. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six-step thematic analysis was adopted and ATLAS. ti version 7 software was used for the purpose of data management and analysis. The findings showed that the participants used both social and affective LLSs at medium level. The use of these two vital strategies, to some extent, is more effective at Finnish language courses than in normal daily life. The participants reported a number or difficulties in the implementation of these strategies, such as their low literacy level, the isolated social life in which they are involved, in addition to the Finn stereotype that tend not to mingle with foreigners and prefer to socialise in certain places like bars and night clubs. Furthermore, there are vast differences between the participants’ backgrounds and the host Finnish society in terms of culture, values, traditions, religion, and norms. The study enriches the body of literature and the present knowledge on the LLS use with the knowledge regarding challenges faced by adult low-literate and illiterate learners of Finnish.

This study focuses on training and compensation as some of HRM's essential variables. The research aims to achieve CA through the role of training, compensation and IWB. The research task is to determine the relationship between training, direct compensation and IWB, then to analyze the mediation effect of IWB on CA, moderated by the indirect compensation. There are various methodologies developed on how to achieve CA. The collection of quantitative data uses the deductive approach through a questionnaire. Conducting several parts and items or questions for such a method is essential to combine the overall hypotheses through statistical analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. The research selected the three local Islamic banks in Jordan, including 3203 employees. Based on the convenience technique, the sample number that should be collected from Jordanian Islamic banks is 219 employees. Reliability and validity are proved along with model fit. The findings of this study indicate that training positively influences innovative work behavior; direct compensation has no significant influence on innovative work behavior. Apart from this, results revealed that innovative work behavior has a positive mediation effect on competitive advantage. In contrast, indirect compensation's moderating effect on the relationship between innovative work behavior and competitive advantage was also confirmed. However, this effect has converted the positive impact of innovative work behavior on competitive advantage to a negative impact. Some implications, limitations and further directions are discussed and suggested.

Audio feature extraction underpins a massive proportion of speech processing, mainly in semantic audio analysis which retrieves sound features information based on intonation, emotion and rhythm. Many researchers have addressed various challenges that most speakers faced when dealing with Arabic language especially in the Quran, due to its differences in written and recital technique. The intonation of words in the Quran will bring different translation or perception to the objective of the chapter generally or to the exact verse particularly. Among other methods to extract strong features that characterise the complex nature of complex and melodious speech signals is cepstral analysis. Nowadays, existing literature have shown that most of the study on acoustical and rhetorical element of the Quran is focusing on the textual analysis rather than recitation of the Quran. In this research an enhanced audio feature extraction has been presented to extract significant ontological audio features contained in Quranic Maqamat Recitation audio recording. The proposed system is initiated by extracting the maqamat features from 242 sets of audio files using existing and enhanced cepstral analysis based on warping function. Nine sets are extracted from spectral descriptors algorithm and the other 2 sets are extracted from the audio feature extraction techniques enhanced with warping function. The framework managed to detect the mean of spectral envelope and spectral descriptors as significant audio features which used as entities for attributes tagging and rule matching. The final stage is performing the semantic analysis based on the proposed ontology with attribute tagging and rule matching for the insight knowledge base construction. The results is analysed in semantic audio analysis and their performance based on the formants frequencies extracted from the spectral properties. This study will initiate an understanding on the characteristics of the maqamat content and hopefully contribute to raising initiatives in profiling the acoustical elements of complex speech analysis for further speech processing analysis.

Studies on the preparation of activated carbon derived from agricultural waste; desiccated coconut residue (DCR); the grated coconut residue left after the extraction of milk, for electrode material in electric double layer capacitor (EDLC) were conducted. The preparation of activated carbon (AC) involves chemical activations with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and potassium hydroxide (KOH) to the charred DCR. The effects of temperature and impregnation ratio on the physicochemical properties of AC prepared were also investigated. DCR sample was first carbonized for 1 hour at three different temperatures; 400°C, 500°C, and 600°C respectively. The resulting chars were impregnated with NaOH and KOH at three different impregnation ratio (IR); 1: 1,1: 2, and 1: 3 respectively followed by further activation under nitrogen atmosphere for 1 hour at the respective carbonization temperatures. The prepared ACs were characterized by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) surface area (SBET), bulk density, ultimate analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and yield. Results show both NaOH and KOH treatments resulted in different effects on the resulting ACs particularly on SBET. NaOH derived activated carbon (NAC) was strongly affected by IR while KOH derived activated carbon (KAC) was strongly affected by temperature. For NAC, the SBET increased with the increased in IR while for KAC the SBET increased with increasing temperature. The SBET of the prepared ACs was in the order: NAC3: 500 > NAC3: 600 > NAC2: 500 > NAC2: 600 > NAC1: 500 > NAC1: 600 > NAC2: 400 > NAC3: 400 > NAC 1: 400 and KAC2: 600 > KAC3: 600 > KAC2: 500 > KAC3: 500 > KACI: 600 > KAC 1: 500 > KAC2: 400 > KAC 1: 400 > KAC3: 400, respectively. The highest SBET for NAC and KAC were found to be 1394.79 m2/g and 823.81 m2/g, with total pore volume (Vi) of 0.78 and 0.50 cm3/g respectively. In general, ACs produced were microporous in characteristic and both activating agents and temperature were found to be important factors in developing microporosity properties of both ACs. Under SEM observation, the selected NAC and KAC had shown a wide variety of pores with honey-comb like structure which resulted from porosity developments. The highest SBET from both NAC and KAC were selected for studying the AC as electrode material in EDLC. Selected ACs were further studied under X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, Energy Dispersive X-Ray (EDX), and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Under XRD analysis, results show both NAC and KAC were found to have turbostratic structures with amorphous characters and disordered structures. The different values of both interlayer spacing (d002 and d100) and microcrystallite dimensions (Lc and La) were attributed to the activation temperature used in AC preparations. KAC was found to have higher degree graphitization and lower degree of disordered as compared to NAC under Raman spectroscopy analysis. Under EDX and XPS analyses, results indicate that NAC had double amount of oxygen functional groups in comparison with KAC. For EDLC fabrications, the EDLCs derived from NAC and KAC was characterized by cyclic voltammetry and charge-discharge with potential window of IV using aqueous electrolytes. Two types of current collectors were applied namely; aluminium foil and stainless steel foil. For aluminium foil, only aqueous electrolyte of IM Na2SO4 were used to fabricate EDLC, whereas for stainless steel foil, three types of electrolytes were utilized; IM H2SO4, IM Na2SO4 and 6M KOH. Results showed that for IM Na2SO4 electrolyte, both NAC and KAC showed similar trends for both types of current collectors in which KAC had shown larger specific capacitance (SC) as compared to NAC even though the SBET of NAC was greater than that of KAC. It was suggested that ion sieving effects had resulted in lower specific capacitance in NAC. Nevertheless, for IM H2SO4 and 6M KOH electrolytes, NAC had shown higher specific capacitance than that of KAC. Factors such as surface functional groups, molar conductivities, size of electrolyte ions have resulted in higher specific capacitance in NAC. NAC had two times oxygen functional groups compared to KAC which could improve the wettability of between NAC electrode surface and electrolytes. The specific capacitance were in the order of 6M KOH > IM H2SO4 > 1M Na2SO4 for both NAC and KAC. Nevertheless, results showed that KAC had better cycle stability than that of NAC due to higher contents of oxygen functional groups that deteriorated the electrodes in NAC. Finally, EDLC derived from DCR was found to exhibit excellent EDLC behaviour in terms of specific capacitance and cycle stability.

Impulse-based ultra-wideband (UWB) can be utilized to support different wireless range with varied data rates and guaranteed received signal quality if the generated pulses tuned carefully. The unique physical advantages of generating a train of very narrow pulses ( in nanoseconds)in ultra-wideband signal are proven in many literature studies to be utilized in different wireless sensing applications such as precise object tracking, high data rate wireless transmissions, medical radar imaging, and military intrusion detections. The motivations of this study can be understood as currently, UWB technology is standardized in two different IEEE protocols as IEEE 802.15.3a for high data rates using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation and IEEE 802.15.4a for low data rates using time hopped modulated train of pulses.This study is motivated by the optimization of IEEE 802.15.4a to support higher rates as well as low rates, as also preserving the quality of the received signal. The problem statement of this research is inspired by the need to have a single UWB solution standard to be tuned to support different applications requirements of data rates and quality of service (QoS) instead of two different protocols. The proposal solution proves the concept of Adaptive PHY-MAC aware UWB design and architecture by tuning the generated train of pulses in time-hopping spread spectrum techniques to support the requarments of different data rates and QoS communications scenarios. The research methodology has investigated the physical parameters of generating a train of very short pulses in ultra-wide frequency ranges then, and it proceeds to propose link budget template design for the purpose of obtaining an adaptive IR-UWB communication system. The objective of this study is intended to utilize a single UWB solution for different data rates and QoS requirements, will reduce the costs of UWB applied over WSN, also will allow cognitively of the wireless node to maintain its operations under a dynamically changing environment in future scenarios. Proposed design of the link budget template for the adaptive IR-UWB communication system is simulated, and improvements are shown to be reached from 10 to 50% of the BER with the suitable RAKE receiver structure. Also, tuning the IR-UWB signal physical parameters with the best matching values for certain BER or data rates requirements can improve the BER up to 65%. Simulated scenarios results of data rates range from 20 to 200 Mbps with maximum distances of 30 m and BER requirement not exceeding ( showed that the best performance is achieved by tuning the pulse modulation to 2PPM. Real-time simulation analysis of the received packets in the indoor scenario of range between 12 to 100 meters, showed that the best-achieved throughput obtained for data rates between 110kbps to 6.8 Mbps. This proposed design clearly describes the productivity of the UWB communication link through the simulation of IEEE 802.15.4a UWB in OMNET-MIXIM and the IEEE 802.15.3a in MATLAB and SIMULINK.MATLAB coding is used to determine the data transmission measurable factors (i.e., parameters), and the SIMULINK is used as prototype proof-of-concept in a real-time simulation environment. The results showed that the performance of the time-hopped UWB communication could be enhanced significantly when properly choosing the sitting of the physical parameters of the pulse generations under different applications and channel models constraints.

This study seeks to examine the challenges faced by the teachers and students in schools adopting mainstream curriculum in teaching English as a second language (L2) to deaf children in Oman. This is in line with the Government of Oman’s effort in introducing an inclusive education program in 2005 in the attempt to integrate children with disabilities, including deaf children in the Omani mainstream schools. Yet adopting the mainstream curriculum for teaching English to the deaf children in Oman and other countries has raised a lot of problems and challenges for the teachers and the deaf children. Based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), this study embarks in investigating the extent of the relevance of the existing mainstream curriculum structure and the effectiveness of the present pedagogy implemented in English language classes for the deaf children in selected schools in Oman. This includes examining attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioural control and intention of deaf children involved. To this end, a sample of 41 from the population of 46 deaf children studying English as (L2) from (Dhofar region in Oman) and a total of 6 English teachers for the deaf children were selected to solicit their opinions on the challenges, curriculum relevance and effectiveness of the pedagogy used in teaching English. To ensure in-depth insights on the issues, a questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale was designed as well as a set of interview questions was employed along with teachers’ diaries. The data collection took four months [September – December 2019] for both the survey and interviews. The quantitative data obtained were analysed using SmartPLS (version 3), and the interview and diaries data were thematically analysed. Major findings from the quantitative survey supported two hypotheses: Attitude (H1) and Perceived Behavioural Control (H3), stating that they have significant positive effects on the intention of the deaf children towards mainstream curriculum adopted in teaching English. Findings from the qualitative data show that the inclusive curriculum is largely relevant but vary with levels of classes, while the pedagogy used in teaching English to deaf children is acceptable. Findings from the teacher’s diaries show that deaf children have difficulties comprehending abstract concepts, writing emails, and reading long sentences. Meanwhile teachers are found to lack training and professional development, teaching materials and teaching devices are also found to be inadequate. The study concludes that the attitude of the deaf children needs motivation towards learning, a special curriculum for the deaf children is required, topics in the syllabus needs review, besides the teachers needing training, and teaching devices for the deaf children should be improved.

In recent years, the dramatic rise in the use of the internet and the improvement in technology In general have transformed societies into one that strongly depends on information and knowledge. The growth of information resources along with the accelerating rate of technological change has produced massive amount of data and information that often exceed the ability to handle and manage it. Therefore, the demand now is creating a faster approach to handle voluminous data. This will also improve the complexity time of the traditional hierarchical methods to face huge collections of data and growing information flooding. In addition, user involvement in the data mining is needed as whereby the user interact with the process through exploitation of the power of human explanation sight and brain for analyzing and exploring data. Clustering is an analysis technique for discovering interesting distributions and patterns in the data set. The objects within a cluster are more similar to each other than the objects in different clusters. This research proposed a bidirectional agglomerative hierarchical clustering algorithm. The proposed algorithm is fundamentally similar to conventional agglomerative hierarchical clustering algorithms designed to partition a collection of objects into subsets sharing similar attributes. It is obvious that analyzing large data sets via traditional methods has moved from being tedious to being high computational cost. The traditional methods usually not scalable to very large datasets, with an O(ri2) computational cost. However, the proposed algorithm adapted AVL tree approach cluster the objects to left and of right the median/root. The computational cost significantly reduced into O(Iog n). This is efficient for huge amount of data. Thus clustering using bidirectional hierarchical will facilitate efficient computational cost. This research demonstrated the agglomerative algorithm performance based on complexity parameters such as execution time and the number of cluster needed to merge all data point/objects into one cluster. As part of the experimental validation, real data set were used to measure the effectiveness and the efficiency of the proposed algorithm!. The study shows a 73.4% improvement from the traditional approach. The demand for visual and interactive analysis tools is particularly pressing in this information age, where the user needs to analyze and observe large amount of data to grasp valuable knowledge. This research also proposed a visual cluster approach to visualize the knowledge extracted by the data mining algorithm using AVL tree approach. The visualization prototype is evaluated by postgraduate students who were interviewed and using Technology Acceptance Model, as the instrument. The result revealed that visualization is useful, easy to use and give user satisfaction.

This study focuses on adab toward parents based on Imam al-Bukhari’s al-Adab al-Mufrad and developing a guideline on adab of children toward parents. The objective of this study is to outline adab principles for contemporary Muslim parents, particularly drawing upon insights from al-Adab al-Mufrad. This seminal work underscores the significance of adab rooted in the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad PBUH and the exemplary conduct of his Companions. To achieve its objectives, a qualitative content analysis approach was adopted. Additionally, this study integrates library research and descriptive methodologies to gather pertinent information and data from various sources including the Qur'an, sunnah, newspaper articles, relevant documents, encyclopaedias, dissertations, journal articles, reviews, academic books, and biographical accounts. The findings of this study will delineate contemporary parental adab guidelines derived from al-Adab al-Mufrad. These guidelines reflect a comprehensive comprehension of children's responsibilities and reverence towards their parents, extending beyond their lifetime. As per al-Adab al-Mufrad, respectful conduct towards living parents encompasses acts of compassion, obedience, supplication, and refraining from disobedience. Subsequently, upon the demise of both parents, children are obligated to settle their debts to Allah SWT and worldly debts, offer du’a, donate to charity on their behalf, and uphold their social connections. This research is anticipated to provide valuable insights within the community, including family members, educational authorities such as school curriculum departments, religious leaders, and individuals. It aims to identify effective strategies and methodologies to address the observed decline in societal adab. Moreover, this study endeavours to contribute to broader efforts aimed at nurturing familial adab and promoting healthy interactions between children and parents. Furthermore, by focusing on children's conduct in fulfilling the rights of the parents, this study aims to serve as a foundational resource for future initiatives aimed at fostering more impactful transformations in societal adab.

In 2021, almost 391,000 migrant workers were employed in oil palm plantations in Malaysia and out of this total, 74% or 289,340 were from Indonesia. The majority of them were from Indonesia and Bangladesh, Muslim countries. The influx of migrant workers is greatly contributed by the perception of local workers that this is a 3D sector - Dirty, Dangerous and Difficult. Despite gaining economic benefits to motivate them, recent reports by several international organizations have alleged that this sector engaged in labour exploitation, such as forced labour. They were alleged to be exploited due to several reasons, such as vulnerability, deception, and debt bondage. Due to these reasons, their well-being is risked of being jeopardised. Therefore, this study was based on exploring the well-being of Muslim migrant workers in oil palm plantations. The study sought to understand the indicators of Islamic and conventional well-being and conclusively developed an integrated model of well-being to understand the quality of life among Muslim migrant workers. The tools employed for data collection in this study included an extensive study of the existing literature review, reviewing previous studies, experts’ interviews, and migrant workers’ interviews. Non-probability sampling was used as the basis for selecting participants and collaborating with oil palm employers. The findings indicated that several indicators were vital in determining the well-being of migrant workers. The indicators were income and wealth, work and job quality, housing, health, knowledge and skills, environmental quality, subjective wellbeing, safety, work-life balance and social connection. Apart from these indicators, other prominent well-being indicators, such as workers’ rights (freedom of association, freedom of movement, welfare (treatment of workers, and financial aid) and religiosity and spirituality also rank as vital factors that influenced their well-being. These findings enable the list of indicators to be more comprehensive and relevant to the actual situation of migrant workers. This study has opened up multiple opportunities to seek relevant indicators that are tailored to the nature of the subject matter. Therefore, this would ensure that any segment of society, whether minority or majority is being evaluated thoroughly to enable different strategies to be formulated by the relevant parties to cater to their well-being needs.

Effective tools are essential for physiotherapists to manage disabled patients. Rehabilitation knowledge, including assessments, goal setting, interventions, and outcomes, supports patient therapy plans. However, the direct applicability of controlled rehabilitation studies to diverse real-world patients is limited. Rehabilitation data comes from various sources, presenting challenges in integrating these assessments centrally and ensuring interoperability. Ontology can produce shared semantics and machine-readable, reusable, and interoperable rehabilitation knowledge, which is crucial to managing patients' disabilities. However, the existing ontologies for the rehabilitation domain are lacking in Physical Therapy (PT) and Occupational Therapy (OT) standard assessments and comprehensive rehabilitation domain knowledge. The current rehabilitation ontology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR) contains concepts related to PT and OT assessments. For the Palestine domain, PMR contains some knowledge that can be used for OT (Functional Independence Measure (FIM)) standard assessments. Nevertheless, many of the standard assessments used in Palestine do not exist in the PMR ontology. Rehabilitation data in Palestine consists of unstructured, semi-structured, and not well organized as well as manual rehabilitation assessment. Therefore, integrating the rehabilitation assessments with the patient’s medical reports will be helpful for medical experts. However, populating the ontology with data from patient’s profiles is the second challenge in this research. A new Rehabilitation Assessment Ontology (RAO) is proposed in this research and contains the PT and OT standard assessments and patient information for the Palestine domain. Next, the 101-ontology development method is used to develop the ontology. The development of the RAO starts with interviews with medical experts to collect knowledge about rehabilitation assessment. Expert knowledge is collected from three different rehabilitation centers in Palestine: (Specialized Al-Ibtisameh Al-Jamelah Physiotherapy Center (BJC), Hashmi for Specialized Physiotherapy and Spinal Manipulation (HSPT), and Future Magic (FM)). Patient information is extracted from 120 patient profiles. New rehabilitation gazetteers have been generated to be populated automatically into the RAO. Finally, the evaluation of the RAO is the third problem in this thesis and it was done by medical and ontology experts. Based on the evaluation, the RAO has been able to answer all the developed Competency Questions (CQs). The CQs were developed based on these interviews with medical experts, reflecting the assessment and treatment protocols they follow. Additionally, two ontology experts endorsed the RAO as having consistency, extensibility, ease of use, and completion. The proposed RAO is an effective data management system for the three rehabilitation centers. The unstructured data for rehabilitation in Palestine will be successfully organized, and queries will be successfully applied through the proposed RAO.

As English Language is increasingly being used in tertiary education, there is growing concern that students graduating from Form Six classes in Iraqi Kurdistan have poor reading skills in particular higher order thinking skills. Therefore, the students entering university are ill prepared to follow courses where the subject matter is taught primarily in English. Little is really known on the reading skills and strategies used in Form 6 and the factors that contribute to poor reading skills. Against this concern, this study was undertaken with the aim to unfold and understand the need for developing critical reading comprehension skills. This study is a content analysis research and qualitative methods were used to collect data. The data used in this research study was obtained through four sources. First, the reading curriculum and the Form Six textbooks were scrutinized in detail and the ensuing comments were documented. Second, two teachers teaching the Form Six classes were observed and this was followed by teacher interviews. Fourth, the first year undergraduate students in universities in Iraqi Kurdistan were interviewed and their feedback were transcribed and carefully coded to find out the difficulties they faced at their respective universities. The findings from this study have shown that most of the reading passages and reading tasks found in the student’s textbook are influenced by bottom-up strategy. There has been a lack of reading passages and reading tasks related to top-down processing and meta-cognitive processing respectively. On the contrary, the findings reflect that most of the passages in the student’s textbook are narrative in nature while at tertiary level more expository type of passages are used. Discussion based on findings, reveal that only a small number of reading comprehension questions refer to reorganization and inferential reading skills. This means that the majority of the reading comprehension questions in the textbook are literal comprehension questions where no critical thinking is involved. The study findings have further shown that most of the reading passages and reading tasks found in Sunrise Student’s Book 12 are influenced by bottom-up strategy. In addition to these, most of the passages in the student’s Book 12 are narrative in nature while at tertiary level more expository type of passages is used. This means that the majority of the reading comprehension questions in the textbook are literal comprehension questions where no critical thinking is involved. Thus, there is a necessity to bring out radical changes to the existing EFL secondary reading curriculum so that new tasks and activities can aid in developing higher order thinking skills. The present study is significant as it can be applicable to other Middle-East countries.

There are two main purposes of the current present study: 1) To determine the overarching approaches to second language (1.2) reading instruction reflected in the Yemeni EST 3rd grade secondary school reading curriculum and 2) To determine if the curriculum prepares students for the reading skills that they are required to have for reading in English at the tertiary level. The data for the study were collected via curriculum documents reviews as well as from classroom observations in the participating schools. The study examined the types of SLA and 1.2 reading instructional approaches, types of reading tasks and texts, learner and teacher roles, the level of cognitive demands required for the reading tasks as well as the emphasis on reading as the means to achieve the learning outcomes listed in the selected curriculum. The data for this study were analyzed using content analysis. The findings on the SLA theories, second language reading theories, learner roles and teacher roles indicate that there are misalignments between the communicative label of the selected curriculum and its actual theoretical grounding. In contrast to its communicative label, the findings indicate that the Yemeni EST 3rd grade secondary school reading curriculum is highly grounded in the cognitive information processing theory rather than the communicative language teaching theory. In addition, the finding on teachers’ role shows that the teachers primarily act as a director rather than a catalyst while the learner’s role are designed to be primarily as individual tasks rather than pair/group tasks. In terms of preparing students for academic reading in English at the University levels, the types of reading tasks in the selected curriculums does train the students on three types of major reading tasks. Nonetheless EST learners are more frequently trained will reading tasks that required low level of cognitive demands rather than reading task that require higher level of cognitive demands. In terms of type of reading passages, the training on the processing of expository texts is highly inadequate due to a significant inclusion of the narrative texts in the EST curriculum. The findings of the study also demonstrates that that the Yemani EST 3rd grade learners are not trained to process texts in English at a grade level as the majority of reading texts are below the grades level in terms of readability and length. The Yemeni EST 3rd grade reading curriculum explicitly emphasises on the use of reading skill as a means to achieve the listed learning outcomes in the EST curriculum. The findings of the study have implications not only to the Yemeni settings but also to other setting which English is not the first language. The findings of current study are discussed in terms of the alignment of the EST 3rd grade secondary school reading curriculum EST learners for English language in the content areas at the tertiary level.

Given the importance of English in all professions and as a global language, enhancing reading proficiency in English is one of the key objectives in the Omani education system. However, reading in English has been one of the major problems in the Omani setting especially among university students. Hence, the current study examined the Omani Grade Twelve EFL reading curriculum in terms of its alignment with the communicative approach as well as how the Omani Grade Twelve EFL reading curriculum prepares students for the academic reading skills required by universities. Data were collected via reviewing the reading tasks extracted from the Grade Twelve Engage With English (EWE) book, EWE course books (A+B), EWE Teacher's Books (A+B) and through classroom observations in the selected schools. This study factored in numerous dynamics such as Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theories and second language reading theories and their corresponding instructional approaches, types of learners' role, types of teachers' role, the emphasis on reading as the means to achieve the learning outcomes specified in the Omani Grade Twelve (EWE) EFL reading curriculum, types of passages and length, level of cognitive demands and level of lexical diversity in the reading passages in the EFL Grade Twelve Course book. The researcher utilised manifested content analysis for analysing the data of the current study. The findings regarding the SLA theories indicate that there is a misalignment between the communicative label of the Omani EFL Grade Twelve reading curriculum and its grounding theories. In addition, In addition, the findings on teachers' role indicate that the teacher primarily acts as a director rather than catalyst while the learners' role is designed to be primarily as an individual task rather than pair/group task. Regarding the preparation of grade twelfth students for academic reading in English at the university level, the grade twelfth curriculum does not fully train the learners on three types of major reading tasks. As for the cognitive demands, the grade twelfth reading curriculum trains students with reading tasks that require a high level of cognitive demands. The findings show that the grade twelfth reading curriculum trains the students to process texts in English at a grade level as the majority of reading passages are up to the grade level in terms of length of the passage, however, with the majority of passages being expository in nature with some narrative passages. The findings of the current study are important not only to the curriculum designers in Oman but also to other countries where the English language is a foreign language.

This study examines the overarching approaches to second language (L2) writing instruction as reflected in the Yemeni English as Foreign Language (EFL) secondary curriculum and how well this curriculum prepares students for the university level EFL writing in content areas. The data were collected by reviewing EFL curriculum documents such as the mandated EFL textbook in Yemeni public secondary schools and EFL workbook as well as observing EFL writing lessons at selected Yemeni secondary schools. The study examined the types of SLA theories, L2 writing instructional approaches, learner roles and teacher roles, the types of writing tasks and the emphasis on writing as a means to achieve the learning outcomes stipulated in the selected curriculum. The data for this study were analysed using manifest content analysis. The findings of the SLA theories, second language (L2) writing approaches, learner roles, and teacher roles reveal that there are misalignments in the theoretical grounding with regards to the communicative label of the selected curriculum. The misalignment of its theoretical underpinning in the selected curriculum is evidenced via the analysis of writing tasks in the EFL textbook and workbook. The findings show that the Yemeni EFL writing curriculum is highly cognitive in nature rather than communicative. In terms of preparing students for academic writing skills required for the tertiary level, writing skill is emphasised in the Yemeni EFL secondary curriculum over reading, listening, and speaking skills. However, the findings on the types of writing tasks and the level of cognitive demand of the writing tasks show that the students in the selected secondary level are not highly trained in writing the expository essays which require high cognitive demand. In contrast, more emphasis is given on training students with narrative writing tasks, which require low level cognitive demand. Knowing this, the Ministry of Education in Yemen, curriculum designers and teachers can realistically plan for the development of the secondary schools EFL writing curriculum and promote effective teaching and learning strategies that will equip students with the writing skills they need at the higher education level. Furthermore, the analytical framework with the proposed theoretical steps, and the empirical demonstration regarding the investigation of how well the EFL writing curriculum prepares students with the required academic writing skills for university, provides new directions for further theoretical development of linguistic studies in different EFL settings.

Acmella paniculata, popularly known as the toothache plant, has been widely used as a traditional medicine to help treat diseases associated with toothache and gum infections. Streptococcus mutans is a common bacterium that can cause dental caries. This study aims to determine the antibacterial activity of A. paniculata extracts against S. mutans. Eight samples of A. paniculata leaves and flowers had been successfully extracted using n-hexane, dichloromethane, acetone and methanol. All samples were tested for antibacterial activity using the disc diffusion assay, the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), and the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC). From the screening, only n-hexane leaves extract (APLHE), methanol leaves extract (APLME), n-hexane flower extract (APFHE) and dichloromethane flower extract (APFDE) exhibited antibacterial activity against S. mutans. Therefore, all four samples were tested with an antibiofilm and time-kill assay to determine the reduction activity and time-kill rate against S. mutans. The results showed that flower extracts exhibit more antibacterial activity against S. mutans when compared with leaves extracts. Thus, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) were used to examine the morphology of S. mutans under treatment with APFHE and APFDE. According to both micrograph observations, the shape of S. mutans changed from coccus and rounded to elongated and lysed after treatments. Then, by using GCMS, the major phytochemical compound found in both APFHE and APFDE is fatty acids (such as hexadecanoic acid, oleic acid, and linoleic acid). Finally, transcriptomic analysis was performed on S. mutans that had been treated with APFDE. The results proved that APFDE affected the biosynthesis of peptidoglycan, gene expression, quorum sensing, citrate cycle and glycolysis pathway of S. mutans. In conclusion, the antibacterial activity of APFDE disrupted various biological processes and pathways of S. mutans.

Acute gastroenteritis was reported to lead to five billion cases worldwide and nearly 1.5 million deaths per year. Although this condition is predominantly caused by viral infections, bacterial gastroenteritis is more severe, while some conditions might require antibiotic treatment. In recent years, there has been an increasing interest among consumers’ regarding prophetic food, such as black seed, dates, goat milk, honey, and figs as alternative treatments. Although previous studies recorded the antioxidant, anti-mutagenic, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial activities, there was no research focusing on the bacteria gastroenteritis. This study aims to investigate the antibacterial effects of date fruit (Phoenix dactylifera) extract and the mechanisms involved against clinically important bacterial gastroenteritis. In-vitro studies were conducted using the extract of three different types of dates, including Ajwa, Medjool, and Mariami. The dates were extracted using cold aqueous, hot aqueous, and methanol, followed by the testing of antibacterial activities using well diffusion assay method against Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella enterica serotype Typhi, Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium, Shigella flexneri, Escherichia coli, and Vibrio cholerae. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) and minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) of the extract of the date were also determined, followed by the examination of anti-adhesion activity using Caco-2 cells model. Active compounds i.e. flavonoid and phenolic were isolated from the dates and tested for their antibacterial effect. The antibacterial mechanism of date extracts and active isolated fractions was later determined using electron microscopy. As a result, all three types of dates showed good antibacterial activity, while the methanol extract of Ajwa dates exhibited the strongest antibacterial effect with the inhibition zone of 25 - 27.33 mm against S. Typhi, V. cholerae, and E. coli (p<0.05). The dates also showed good anti-adhesion activity up to 95.6% against all tested bacteria, with hot aqueous extract of Ajwa dates showing the highest anti-adhesion activity compared to Medjool and Mariami dates. Phytochemical analysis indicated that the Ajwa dates contained significantly higher phenolic and flavonoid content compared to Medjool and Mariami dates (p<0.05), while isolated flavonoids (e.g.; luteolin, catechin, lutein, kaempferol, and cyanidin) in Ajwa dates showed antibacterial activity against S. Typhimurium, S. flexneri, and V. cholerae with the inhibition zone ranging from 13 – 26 mm and MIC values ranging from 3.125 mg/ml to 6.25 mg/ml. The MBC value of flavonoids could only be determined for V. cholerae with an MBC value of 3.125 mg/ml. Moreover, the isolated flavonoids showed 47% of anti-adhesion activity. It was found from the electron microscopy that both date extract and isolated flavonoids could cause ultra-structural damages to the bacterial cell wall, blisters on the cells , shrunken of the cells, and lysis of the cells. Luteolin, catechin, lutein, kaempferol, and cyanidin in Ajwa dates extract had a role in their antibacterial activity and they could cause ultra-structural damage to the bacterial cell wall, which results in cell death. This study showed that date fruits exhibited antibacterial properties which able to kill bacteria and prevent bacterial adhesion that can leads to gastroenteritis. The finding of this study suggests that the Ajwa date fruits can be used as a functional food or complementary alternative treatment to prevent/treat bacterial gastroenteritis.

Bioactive peptides can be generated from milk protein by fermentation with lactic acid bacteria (LAB). In this study LAB were isolated from different food samples. Among 300 LAB isolates, 205 isolates showed clear zone on modified MRS-CaCO3 agar, catalase negative and Gram positive, that were considered as LAB and used for this study. Twenty out of 205 isolates that showed proteolytic activity on skim milk agar produced peptides in skim milk hydrolysate (SMH) and show free radical scavenging activity ranging from 11 to 50.8% (v/v) after 24 to 72 h of fermentation, respectively as determined by 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) method. Ferrous chelating activity (FCA) of SMH showed similar values for EDTA after 24 h fermentation but decreased after 72 h for all LAB isolates with values between 10.3 to 97.6% (v/v) for 24 to 72 h, respectively. The IC50 DPPH value of SMH-Lactobacillus plantarum1 (SMH1) was higher (2.92 mg/ml) than that of Leuconostoc mesenteroides (SMH2) and Lactobacillus plantarum ATCC8014 (SMH3) 8.81 and 4.53 mg/ml, respectively. The IC50 FCA values of SMH1 and SMH2 were 0.46 and 0.69 mg/ml, respectively greater than SMH3 (IC50 value 0.74 mg/ml) but lower than EDTA. All isolates showed poor reducing power (RP) compared to ascorbic acid. L. mesenteroides and L. plantarum1 isolated from non-dairy sources have probiotic and antioxidative properties which could benefit consumers. The proteolytic activity of SMH was significant affected (p ≤ 0.05) by the strains of LAB used. The SMH1 was higher inhibit the cell proliferation of cancer cells than SMH2 and SMH3 with values 20.63, 26.32 and 32.63%, respectively at concentration of SMH 200 μg/ml compared with the untreated control cells. The amino acid compositions for all SMH were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) rich in glutamic acid, proline, lysine and leucine.However, the total hydrophobic amino acids content in SMH2 was higher (13.98%) than SMH1 and SMH3 (12.72%, and 8.23%), respectively. Aromatic amino acids along with hydrophobic amino acids contribute to antioxidant activity. The crude protein extracts of SMH generated by three LABs isolates were partially purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and dialysis. The peptides from most active fractions collected by reverse phase high-performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC) were sequenced by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). The application of antibrowning agents is one of the most effective methods for controlling the browning reaction in fruits and vegetables. Therefore, the effect of antibrowning agents (Ascorbic acid, Citric acid, SMH1, SMH2 and SMH1+SMH2) on Chinese pear and potato slices was investigated. The results indicate that the slices of Chinese pear and potato treated with combining SMH1+SMH2 inhibited browning reaction comparable to ascorbic acid as shown by reduction of total phenol content. Therefore, It can be concluded that this local LAB isolates have the potential to be used to generate peptides in SMH and have the antioxidant and antibrowning activities, a dual function of bioactive peptides that would be useful in the formulation of functional foods.