• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.52 no.6
• /
• pp.1282-1288
• /
• 2020

In the first study, the Radon emanation and radiological hazards associated with radionuclides in soil samples, collected from 9 various date palm farms located in 3 different districts in Saudi Arabia were determined through a high purity Germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometer. The estimated average values of Radon emanation coefficient and Radon mass exhalation rate for soil samples were 0.535 ± 0.016 and 50.063 ± 7.901 mBqkg^-1h^-1, respectively. The annual effective dose of radionuclides in all sampling locations was found to be lower than UNSCEAR's recommended level of 0.07 mSvy^-1 for soil in an outdoor environment. In the secondary study, gross α and gross β activities in soil and date palm pits samples were measured by a low background α/β counting system. Average values of gross α and gross β activities in soil and date palm pits samples were 5.761 ± 0.360 Bqkg^-1, 38.219 ± 8.619 Bqkg^-1 and 0.556 ± 0.142 Bqkg^-1, 24.266 ± 1.711 Bqkg^-1, respectively.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.7 no.9
• /
• pp.549-560
• /
• 2020

The purpose of the study is to explore the psychological empowerment of the worker as a moderator to explain the link between knowledge sharing and innovative work behaviour within the telecommunication sector of Saudi Arabia. This study is based on a quantitative approach, having collected data through a series of questionnaires developed on previous studies. This study has applied Smart-Partial Least Squares (PLS) for the data analysis. The results revealed that there is a positive and significant relationship between knowledge sharing and innovative work behaviour. The knowledge sharing increases the competencies of the workers, bringing about more creativeness and perfection. Furthermore, this study elaborates that psychological empowerment plays an important role as a moderator in making a strong relationship between knowledge sharing and innovative work behaviour. This study concluded that the innovative work behaviour in any organisation depends on the practice, experience, and capabilities of the workers and, most importantly, the interdepartmental knowledge shared amongst them. The sharing of knowledge psychologically empowers the worker to bring creativity, modernization and excellence in the work that affects the marginal productivity, profitability, and customer satisfaction at a great extent. These factors provide long-run sustainability to business in a highly competitive market environment.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.4 no.1
• /
• pp.25-38
• /
• 2017

This study investigates the causal relationship between stock prices and exchange rates for six Middle Eastern countries, namely, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia before and during (after) the 2007 global financial crisis for the period between January 2004 and September 2015. The sample is divided into two sub-periods, that is, the period from January 1, 2004 to September 30, 2007 and the period from October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2015, to represent the pre-crisis period and the post-crisis period, respectively. Using Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model in a multivariate framework (including two control variables, inflation rates and oil prices) the results suggest that in the case of Jordan, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, there exists bidirectional causalities after the crisis period but not the before. The opposite status is available for the case of Iran. In the case of Oman, there is bidirectional causality between the variables of interest in both periods. The results also reveal that the relationship between stock prices and exchange rates has become stronger after the 2007 global financial crisis. Overall, the results of this study indicate that fluctuations in foreign exchange markets can significantly affect stock markets in the Middle East.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.5
• /
• pp.1109-1117
• /
• 2021

The main aim of this investigation is to explore the relationships between emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment, and job satisfaction among employees working in the banking sector. A total of 214 respondents were surveyed for the purpose of this investigation and selected randomly from different banks located in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (K.S.A.). Job Burnout Inventory developed by Maslach and Jackson (1981) was taken into consideration to assess emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and sense of personal accomplishment, and job satisfaction scale was used to measure the degree of satisfaction level of the employees. The collected data were analyzed by means of descriptive and inferential statistics with the help of statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The most eye-catching findings of the investigation revealed that emotional exhaustion had the greater mean as compared to depersonalization and personal accomplishment. The inverse significant correlation has been observed between emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and job satisfaction while positive and significant relationship was observed between personal accomplishment and job satisfaction. Further, the result of the investigation from regression test indicates that the relationship existed between emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment, and job satisfaction among employees working in the banking sector in the Kingdom.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.29 no.6
• /
• pp.999-1007
• /
• 2019

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and related infection cases have been reported in over 20 countries. Roughly 10,000 human cases have so far been reported in total with fatality rates at up to 40%. The majority of cases have occurred in Saudi Arabia with mostly sporadic outbreaks outside the country except for the one in South Korea in 2015. The Korean MERS-CoV strain was isolated from the second Korean patient and its genome was fully sequenced and deposited. To develop virus-specific protective and therapeutic agents against the Korean isolate and to investigate molecular determinants of virus-host interactions, it is of paramount importance to generate its full-length cDNA. Here we report that two full-length cDNAs from a Korean patient-isolated MERS-CoV strain were generated by a combination of conventional cloning techniques and efficient Gibson assembly reactions. The full-length cDNAs were validated by restriction analysis and their sequence was verified by Sanger method. The resulting cDNA was efficiently transcribed in vitro and the T7 promoter-driven expression was robust. The resulting reverse genetic system will add to the published list of MERS-CoV cDNAs and facilitate the development of Korean isolate-specific antiviral measures.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.21 no.8
• /
• pp.297-307
• /
• 2021

In the vibrant environment, documentation and managing systems are maintained autonomously through education foundations, book materials and libraries at the same time as information are not voluntarily accessible in a centralized location. At the moment Libraries are providing online resources and services for education activities. Moreover, libraries are applying outlets of social media such as Facebook as well as Instagrams to preview their services and procedures. Librarians with the assistance of promising tools and technology like analytics software are capable to accumulate more online information, analyse them for incorporating worth to their services. Thus Libraries can employ big data to construct enhanced decisions concerning collection developments, updating public spaces and tracking the purpose of library book materials. Big data is being produced due to library digitations and this has forced restrictions to academicians, researchers and policy creator's efforts in enhancing the quality and effectiveness. Accordingly, helping the library clients with research articles and book materials that are in line with the users interest is a big challenge and dispute based on Taibah university in Saudi Arabia. The issues of this domain brings the numerous sources of data from various institutions and sources into single place in real time which can be time consuming. The most important aim is to reduce the time that lapses among the authentic book reading and searching the specific study material.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.7
• /
• pp.11-19
• /
• 2021

The study aims to investigate the impact of seasonality in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries' share market during the month of Ramadan. It helps in finding the opportunities for stock market investors to earn abnormal (returns) gain by investing during Ramadan in GCC stock markets. This study uses stock returns data of GCC countries (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Dubai, and UAE) from January 2004 to November 2019. Stock prices indexes of GCC stock markets have been obtained from Datastream. The ARCH-GARCH model is used to study the impact of the Ramadan month on the return and volatility of the stock market in GCC countries. The results showed that the Ramadan month has a significant impact on share market prices in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. However, Ramadan has an insignificant impact on share market prices in Bahrain and Oman. The study found no evidence of serial correlational between residuals in Kuwait; meaning that stock return was not dependent on the prior stock returns in Kuwait, therefore, we cannot go for forecasting. The ARCH-LM test statistic for Qatar does not fulfill the requirement of a good regression model; therefore, we cannot go for forecasting or testing the hypothesis of Qatar.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
• /
• v.21 no.4
• /
• pp.84-92
• /
• 2021

Care services are a significant asset in human life. Care in its overall nature focuses on human needs and covers several aspects such as health care, homes, personal care, and education. In fact, care deals with many dimensions: physical, psychological, and social interconnections. Very little information is available on estimating the cost of care services that provided to orphans and abandoned children. Prediction of the cost of the care system delivered by governmental or non-governmental organizations to support orphans and abandoned children is increasingly needed. The purpose of this study is to analyze the care cost for orphanage organizations in Saudi Arabia to forecast the cost as well as explore the most influence factor on the cost. By using business analytic process that applied statistical and machine learning techniques, we proposed a model includes simple linear regression, Naive Bayes classifier, and Random Forest algorithms. The finding of our predictive model shows that Naive Bayes has addressed the highest accuracy equals to 87% in predicting the total care cost. Our model offers predictive approach in the perspective of business analytics.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
• /
• v.8 no.2
• /
• pp.41-55
• /
• 2021

We examine the effects of the sustainability report (SURE) and investment decision on share price (SPRC). Explore whether the sustainability report changes the value-relevance of financial accounting variables indirectly. It is evident that the number of banks is only 12, which are all banks in Saudi Arabia, and we have included all of them in the final sample. Moreover, the same number of banks applied for the analysis concerning the accounting variables. This article utilizes a panel dataset from a sample of Saudis registered banks from the first quarter of 2014 to the last quarter of 2018. We utilize a balanced sample that contains all banks listed in Tadawul, 240 observations. Run GLM regression to tests the relationships. Findings exhibit that investors value the complementary disclosure of accounting information provided in SURE, and this disclosure produces a positive effect on SPRC. The SURE figure is robustly significant, suggesting that the market assigns a positive-significant correlation to the further information in the SURE. The indirect effects show that BPS×SURE is a positive-significant effect on SPRC, whereas EPS×SURE is positively-insignificant. The analysis shows that SURE's value relevance conforms through Saudis Banks, consistent with the hypothesis that diverse institutional perspectives probably influence the value-relevance of SURE.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
• /
• v.41 no.5
• /
• pp.883-893
• /
• 2021

Clostridium difficile present in feces of food animals may contaminate their meats and act as a potential source of C. difficile infection (CDI) to humans. C. difficile resistance to antibiotics, its production of toxins and spores play major roles in the pathogenesis of CDI. This is the first study to evaluate C. difficile prevalence in retail raw animal meats, its antibiotics susceptibilities and toxigenic activities in Al-Jouf, Saudi Arabia. Totally, 240 meat samples were tested. C. difficile was identified by standard microbiological and biochemical methods. Vitek-2 compact system confirmed C. difficile isolates were 15/240 (6.3%). Toxins A/B were not detected by Xpect C. difficile toxin A/B tests. Although all isolates were susceptible to vancomycin and metronidazole, variable degrees of reduced susceptibilities to moxifloxacin, clindamycin or tetracycline antibiotics were detected by Epsilon tests. C. difficile strains with reduced susceptibility to antibiotics should be investigated. Variability between the worldwide reported C. difficile contamination levels could be due to absence of a gold standard procedure for its isolation. Establishment of a unified testing algorithm for C. difficile detection in food products is definitely essential to evaluate the inter-regional variation in its prevalence on national and international levels. Proper use of antimicrobials during animal husbandry is crucial to control the selective drug pressure on C. difficile strains associated with food animals. Investigating the protective or pathogenic potential of non-toxigenic C. difficile strains and the possibility of gene transfer from certain toxigenic/ antibiotics-resistant to non-toxigenic/antibiotics-sensitive strains, respectively, should be worthy of attention.