Search results for: Arabic isolated words

Authors: Shoba Bandi-Rao

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The lack of college readiness is one of the major contributors to low graduation rates at community colleges, especially among educationally and financially disadvantaged students. About 45% of underprepared high school graduates are required to complete ‘remedial’ reading/writing courses before they can begin taking college-level courses. Mobile apps present ‘bite-size’ learning materials that can be useful for practicing certain literacy skills, such as vocabulary learning. The convenience of mobile phones is ideal for a majority of students at community colleges who hold full or part-time jobs. Mobile apps allow students to learn during small ‘chunks’ of time available to them outside of the class—during subway commute, between classes, etc. Learning with mobile apps is a relatively new area in research, and their effectiveness for learning new words has been inconclusive. Using Mishra & Koehler’s TPCK theoretical framework, this study explored the effectiveness of the mobile app (Quizlet) for learning one hundred common college-level words in ‘remedial’ writing class over one semester. Each week, before coming to class, students studied a list of 10-15 words presented in context within sentences. Students came across these words in the article they read in class making their learning more meaningful. A pre and post-test measured the number of words students knew, learned and remembered. Statistical analysis shows that students performed better by 41% on the post-test indicating that the mobile app was helpful for learning words. Students also completed a short survey each week that sought to determine the amount of time students spent on the vocabulary app. A positive correlation was found between the amount of time spent on the mobile app and the number of words learned. The goal of this research is to capitalize on the convenience of smartphones to (1) better prepare them for college-level course work, and (2) contribute to current literature on mobile learning.

Keywords: mobile learning, vocabulary learning, literacy skills, Quizlet

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Authors: Bilal Orfali

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It is common practice in modern times to read mystical poetry and apply it to our mundane lives and loves. Sufis in the early period did the opposite. Their mystical hymns often spun out of the courtly poetic ghazal, panegyric, and wine songs. This paper highlights the relation of the Arabic courtly poetic canon to early Sufism. Sufi akhbār and poetry evoke past poets and their poetic heritage. They tend to quote or refer to eminent poets whose poetry must have been widely circulated and memorized. However, Sufism places this readily recognizable poetry in a new context that deliberately changes the past. It is a process of a metaphorization in which the reality of the pre-Islamic, Umayyad, and Abbasid models now acts as a device or metaphor for the Sufi poetics.

Keywords: Sufism, Arabic poetry, literature, Islamic literature, Abbasid

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Authors: Bryony Pound

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This study investigated how views of green or urban space affect learning performance. It provides evidence of the value of visual access to greenspace in work and learning environments, and builds on the extensive research into the cognitive and learning-related benefits of access to green and natural spaces, particularly in learning environments. It demonstrates that benefits of visual access to natural spaces whilst learning can produce statistically significant faster responses than those facing urban views after only 5 minutes. The primary hypothesis of this research was that a greenspace view would improve short-term learning. Participants were randomly assigned to either a view of parkland or of urban buildings from the same room. They completed a psychological test of two stages. The first stage consisted of a presentation of words from eight different categories (four manmade and four natural). Following this a 2.5 minute break was given; participants were not prompted to look out of the window, but all were observed doing so. The second stage of the test involved a word recognition/false memory test of three types. Type 1 was presented words from each category; Type 2 was non-presented words from those same categories; and Type 3 was non-presented words from different categories. Participants were asked to respond with whether they thought they had seen the words before or not. Accuracy of responses and reaction times were recorded. The key finding was that reaction times for Type 2 words (highest difficulty) were significantly different between urban and green view conditions. Those with an urban view had slower reaction times for these words, so a view of greenspace resulted in better information retrieval for word and false memory recognition. Importantly, this difference was found after only 5 minutes of exposure to either view, during winter, and with a sample size of only 26. Greenspace views improve performance in a learning task. This provides a case for better visual access to greenspace in work and learning environments.

Keywords: benefits, greenspace, learning, restoration

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Authors: Mohammad Al-Dawoody

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This study aims at exploring if priming is affected by gender in Modern Standard Arabic and if it is restricted solely to subjects with no specific language impairment (SLI). The sample in this study consists of 74 subjects, between the ages of 11;1 and 11;10, distributed into (a) 2 SLI experimental groups of 38 subjects divided into two gender groups of 18 females and 20 males and (b) 2 non-SLI control groups of 36 subjects divided into two gender groups of 17 females and 19 males. Employing a mixed research design, the researcher conducted this study within the framework of the relevance theory (RT) whose main assumption is that human beings are endowed with a biological ability to magnify the relevance of the incoming stimuli. Each of the four groups was given two different priming stimuli: audio-visual priming (T1) and syntactic priming (T2). The results showed that the priming effect was sheer distinct among SLI participants especially when retrieving typical responses (TR) in T1 and T2 with slight superiority of males over females. The results also revealed that non-SLI females showed stronger original response (OR) priming in T1 than males and that non-SLI males in T2 excelled in OR priming than females. Furthermore, the results suggested that the audio-visual priming has a stronger effect on SLI females than non-SLI females and that syntactic priming seems to have the same effect on the two groups (non-SLI and SLI females). The conclusion is that the priming effect varies according to gender and is not confined merely to non-SLI subjects.

Keywords: specific language impairment, relevance theory, audio-visual priming, syntactic priming, modern standard Arabic

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Authors: Nada Farhani, Naim Terbeh, Mounir Zrigui

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The recognition of the objects contained in images has always presented a challenge in the field of research because of several difficulties that the researcher can envisage because of the variability of shape, position, contrast of objects, etc. In this paper, we will be interested in the recognition of objects. The classical Hough Transform (HT) presented a tool for detecting straight line segments in images. The technique of HT has been generalized (GHT) for the detection of arbitrary forms. With GHT, the forms sought are not necessarily defined analytically but rather by a particular silhouette. For more precision, we proposed to combine the results from the GHT with the results from a calculation of similarity between the histograms and the spatiograms of the images. The main purpose of our work is to use the concepts from recognition to generate sentences in Arabic that summarize the content of the image.

Keywords: recognition of shape, generalized hough transformation, histogram, spatiogram, learning

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Authors: Halima Musa Kamilu

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This paper discusses the effective strategies for teaching English language to learners in primary schools in Nigeria. English language development is the systematic use of instructional strategies designed to promote the acquisition of English by pupils in primary schools whose primary language is not English. Learning a second language is through total immersion. These strategies support this learning method, allowing pupils to have the knowledge of English language in a pattern similar to the way they learned their native language through regular interaction with others who already know the language. The focus is on fluency and learning to speak English in a social context with native speakers. The strategies allow for effective acquisition. The paper also looked into the following areas: visuals that reinforce spoken or written words, employ gestures for added emphasis, adjusting of speech, stressing of high-frequency vocabulary words, use of fewer idioms and clarifying the meaning of words or phrases in context, stressing of participatory learning and maintaining a low anxiety level and boosting of enthusiasm. It recommended that the teacher include vocabulary words that will make the content more comprehensible to the learner.

Keywords: effective, strategies, teaching, beginners and primary schools

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Authors: A. Fazilah, I. Darah, I. Noraznawati

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Three different bacteria capable of degrading phenanthrene were isolated from hydrocarbon contaminated site. In this study, the phenanthrene-degrading activity by defined monoculture was determined and mixed culture was identified as Acinetobacter sp. P3d, Bacillus sp. P4a and Pseudomonas sp. P6. All bacteria were able to grow in a minimal salt medium saturated with phenanthrene as the sole source of carbon and energy. Phenanthrene degradation efficiencies by different combinations (consortia) of these bacteria were investigated and their phenanthrene degradation was evaluated by gas chromatography. Among the monocultures, Pseudomonas sp. P6 exhibited 58.71% activity compared to Acinetobacter sp. P3d and Bacillus sp. P4a which were 56.97% and 53.05%, respectively after 28 days of cultivation. All consortia showed high phenanthrene elimination which were 95.64, 79.37, 87.19, 79.21% for Consortia A, B, C and D, respectively. The results indicate that all of the bacteria isolated may effectively degrade target chemical and have a promising application in bioremediation of hydrocarbon contaminated soil purposes.

Keywords: phenanthrene, consortia, acinetobacter sp. P3d, bacillus sp. P4a, pseudomonas sp. P6

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Authors: Chougrani Fadela, Cheriguene Abderrahim

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Fifty three strains of thermophilic and mesophilic lactic acid bacteria were isolated from the ewe’s milk. Identification reveals the presence of nineteen strains (36%) of Lactobacillus sp., seventeen strains (32%) of Lactococcus sp., nine strains (17%) of Streptococcus thermophilus and eight strains (15%) of Leuconostoc sp. The strains were characterized for their technological properties. A high diversity of properties among the studied strains was demonstrated. On the basis of technological characteristics, two strains (Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus) were screened with respect to their acid and flavour production for the preparation of a natural yogurt and compared to a commercial starter cultures. Sensorial analyses revealed that the product manufactured on the basis of the isolated strains have a cohesiveness and adhesiveness corresponding to standard products. The pH and the acidity recorded are also within accepted levels during all the period of conservation.

Keywords: Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, yoghurt, cohesiveness, adhesiveness, Algerian ewe’s milk

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Authors: Abeer Heider

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This paper explores and classifies the different kinds of avoidances that students commonly make in the acquisition of Arabic as a second/foreign language, and suggests specific strategies to help students lessen their avoidance trends in hopes of streamlining the learning process. Students most commonly use avoidance strategies in grammar, and word choice. These different types of strategies have different implications and naturally require different approaches. Thus the question remains as to the most effective way to help students improve their Arabic, and how teachers can efficiently utilize these techniques. It is hoped that this research will contribute to understand the role of avoidance in the field of the second language acquisition in general, and as a type of input. Yet some researchers also note that similarity between L1 and L2 may be problematic as well since the learner may doubt that such similarity indeed exists and consequently avoid the identical constructions or elements (Jordens, 1977; Kellermann, 1977, 1978, 1986). In an effort to resolve this issue, a case study is being conducted. The present case study attempts to provide a broader analysis of what is acquired than is usually the case, analyzing the learners ‘accomplishments in terms of three –part framework of the components of communicative competence suggested by Michele Canale: grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence and discourse competence. The subjects of this study are 15 students’ 22th year who came to study Arabic at Qatar University of Cairo. The 15 students are in the advanced level. They were complete intermediate level in Arabic when they arrive in Qatar for the first time. The study used discourse analytic method to examine how the first language affects students’ production and output in the second language, and how and when students use avoidance methods in their learning. The study will be conducted through Fall 2015 through analyzing audio recordings that are recorded throughout the entire semester. The recordings will be around 30 clips. The students are using supplementary listening and speaking materials. The group will be tested at the end of the term to assess any measurable difference between the techniques. Questionnaires will be administered to teachers and students before and after the semester to assess any change in attitude toward avoidance and selectivity methods. Responses to these questionnaires are analyzed and discussed to assess the relative merits of the aforementioned strategies to avoidance and selectivity to further support on. Implications and recommendations for teacher training are proposed.

Keywords: the second language acquisition, learning languages, selectivity, avoidance

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Authors: Hashem Shariatmadar, Mozhgansadat Momtazdargahi

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The purpose of control structure against earthquake is to dissipate earthquake input energy to the structure and reduce the plastic deformation of structural members. There are different methods for control structure against earthquake to reduce the structure response that they are active, semi-active, inactive and hybrid. In this paper two different combined control systems are used first system comprises base isolator and multi tuned mass dampers (BI & MTMD) and another combination is hybrid base isolator and multi tuned mass dampers (HBI & MTMD) for controlling an eight story isolated benchmark steel structure. Active control force of hybrid isolator is estimated by fuzzy logic algorithms. The influences of the combined systems on the responses of the benchmark structure under the two near-field earthquake (Newhall & Elcentro) are evaluated by nonlinear dynamic time history analysis. Applications of combined control systems consisting of passive or active systems installed in parallel to base-isolation bearings have the capability of reducing response quantities of base-isolated (relative and absolute displacement) structures significantly. Therefore in design and control of irregular isolated structures using the proposed control systems, structural demands (relative and absolute displacement and etc.) in each direction must be considered separately.

Keywords: base-isolated benchmark structure, multi-tuned mass dampers, hybrid isolators, near-field earthquake, fuzzy algorithm

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Authors: Anastasios Ntousas

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The purpose of the following paper is to analyze the relationship between the lexical quality and the self-teaching hypothesis and their impact on the reading ability. The following questions emerged, is there a correlation between the effective reading experience that the lexical quality hypothesis proposes and the self-teaching hypothesis, would the ability to read by analogy facilitate and create stable, synchronized four-word representational, and would word morphological knowledge be a possible extension of the self-teaching hypothesis. The lexical quality hypothesis speculates that words include four representational attributes, phonology, orthography, morpho-syntax, and meaning. Those four-word representations work together to make word reading an effective task. A possible lack of knowledge in one of the representations might disrupt reading comprehension. The degree that the four-word features connect together makes high and low lexical word quality representations. When the four-word representational attributes connect together effectively, readers have a high lexical quality of words; however, when they hardly have a strong connection with each other, readers have a low lexical quality of words. Furthermore, the self-teaching hypothesis proposes that phonological recoding enables printed word learning. Phonological knowledge and reading experience facilitate the acquisition and consolidation of specific-word orthographies. The reading experience is related to strong reading comprehension. The more readers have contact with texts, the better readers they become. Therefore, their phonological knowledge, as the self-teaching hypothesis suggests, might have a facilitative impact on the consolidation of the orthographical, morphological-syntax and meaning representations of unknown words. The phonology of known words might activate effectively the rest of the representational features of words. Readers use their existing phonological knowledge of similarly spelt words to pronounce unknown words; a possible transference of this ability to read by analogy will appear with readers’ morphological knowledge. Morphemes might facilitate readers’ ability to pronounce and spell new unknown words in which they do not have lexical access. Readers will encounter unknown words with similarly phonemes and morphemes but with different meanings. Knowledge of phonology and morphology might support and increase reading comprehension. There was a careful selection, discussion of theoretical material and comparison of the two existing theories. Evidence shows that morphological knowledge improves reading ability and comprehension, so morphological knowledge might be a possible extension of the self-teaching hypothesis, the fundamental skill to read by analogy can be implemented to the consolidation of word – specific orthographies via readers’ morphological knowledge, and there is a positive correlation between effective reading experience and self-teaching hypothesis.

Keywords: morphology, orthography, reading ability, reading comprehension

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Authors: Hanan Bishara

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This study deals with the subject of Popular Arabic Proverbs and the stereotypical roles and images that they create about the woman in general and Arab woman in particular. Popular proverbs in general are considered to be essence of experiences of society and the extract of its collective thought establish wisdom in a distinguished concise tight mold or style that affects the majority of people and keep them alive by virtue of constant use and oral currency through which they are transmitted from one generation to another. Proverbs deal with different aspects and types of people, different social relations, including the society's attitude about the woman. Proverbs about women in the human heritage in general and the Arab heritage in particular are considered of a special characteristics and remarkable in their being dynamic ones that move in all directions of life. Most of them carry the essence of the social issues and are distributed in such a way that they have become part of the private life of the general public. This distribution covers all periods and fields of the woman's life, the social, the economic and psychological ones. The woman occupies a major space in the Popular Proverbs because she is the center of social life inside and outside the house. The woman's statuses and images in the provers are numerous and she is often described in parallel images but each one differs from the other. These images intertwine due to their varieties and multiplicity and ultimately, they constitute a general stereotypical image of the woman, which degrades her status as a woman, a mother and a wife. The study shows how Popular Proverbs in Arabic reflect the Arab woman's position and status in her society.

Keywords: Arab, proverb, popular, society, woman

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Authors: Ali Akbar Zeinali

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Lack of appropriate equivalences for the terms or technical words is the result of ineffective translation guidelines adopted in the translation processes. The increasing number of foreign words and specific terms incorporated into the native language are due to the ongoing development of technology and science. Many problems appear in medical translation when the Persian translators try to employ non-Persian or imported words in medical texts, in which multiple equivalents may be created for one particular word based on the individual preferences of authors and translators in the target language due to lack of standardization. The study attempted to discuss the findings based on the compatibility of the international naming criteria, considering the translation procedures. About 67% of 339 equivalents under this study were grouped as incompatible words while about 33% of them were compatible terms. The similarities and differences were investigated and discussed according to the compatibility status of the equivalents with Sager’s criteria. Such equivalents have been classified into several groups through bi-dimensional descriptions that were different features of translation procedures related to the international naming criteria. In review of the frequency distribution of compatibilities, the equivalents were divided into two categories of compatibles and incompatibles, indicating the effectiveness of the applied translation procedures.

Keywords: linguistics, medical translation, naming, terminology

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Authors: Issam Ben Jami

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Information retrieval in digital libraries is very important because most famous historical documents occupy a significant value. The word spotting in historical documents is a very difficult notion, because automatic recognition of such documents is naturally cursive, it represents a wide variability in the level scale and translation words in the same documents. We first present a system for the automatic recognition, based on the extraction of interest points words from the image model. The extraction phase of the key points is chosen from the representation of the image as a synthetic description of the shape recognition in a multidimensional space. As a result, we use advanced methods that can find and describe interesting points invariant to scale, rotation and lighting which are linked to local configurations of pixels. We test this approach on documents of the 15th century. Our experiments give important results.

Keywords: feature matching, historical documents, pattern recognition, word spotting

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Authors: Malak Alasli

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Hungarians come to use geographic names that are foreign to their environment and language in diverse settings, hence the aim of trying to adapt them to their own linguistic context. The Maghreb region (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) uses both Arabic and French in presenting the place names. Consequently, the lexicographical treatment of the toponym will, therefore, consist of both the presentation of the toponymic term and the pronunciation of the entries. The motivation behind this approach is the need for a better identification of the place in question by avoiding ambiguities, and for more respect to the heritage by conforming to the right use of toponyms both in written as well as in oral practice. The goal is to provide Hungarians with a set of data by attempting a system of transliteration from French/Arabic to Hungarian, where the place names of the Maghreb are transliterated for more efficient usage. To examine the importance of toponyms’ pronunciation, the latter were collected from several 20th and 21st Hungarian school atlases. Most people meet, for the first time, foreign place names in school, hence the choice of solely extracting place names from school atlases as sample data. Interviews targeted university students, where they were asked to pronounce the place names collected. Results revealed the intricacy behind the pronunciation. Two main conclusions emerged; Hungarian students encountered challenges reading the toponyms, and Arabic speakers could not identify the names either, which causes a cut in communication. Ergo, the importance of elaborating on the pronunciation of toponyms. Concordance is where you find variants of a name. Therefore, a chart was put forward including all the name variants obtained from various references with their Arabic transcription indicating any changes that may have occurred, and the origin of the denomination (Roman, Berber, etc.). A case will also be added for comments and observations. This work embraces a dual purpose. It will provide information to Hungarians on the official names of foreign places in case of occurring changes; for instance, 'El-goléa, Algeria' (used in a latest edition of a school atlas) has now the official name of 'El Ménia'. It will also serve as a reference for knowing the correct and precise forms of place names’ pronunciation.

Keywords: concordance, onomastics, settlement names, school atlases

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Authors: Mohsine Khazrouni

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The present study is an attempt to highlight the importance of adaptation in translation. To convey the message, the translator needs to take into account not only the text but also extra-linguistic factors such as the target audience. The present paper claims that adaptation is an unavoidable translation strategy when dealing with texts that are heavy with religious and cultural themes. The translation task becomes even more challenging when dealing with children’s literature as the audience are children whose comprehension, experience and world knowledge are limited. The study uses the Arabic translation of the short story ‘Christmas Every Day’ as a case study. The short story will be translated, and the pragmatic problems involved will be discussed. The focus will be on the issue of adaptation. i.e., the source text should be adapted to the target language audience`s social and cultural environment.

Keywords: pragmatic adaptation, Arabic translation, children's literature, equivalence

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Authors: Mohamed A. Ghandourah, Walied M. Alarif, Nahed O. Bawakid

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Halogenated cyclic enynes and terpenoids are commonly identified among secondary metabolites of the genus Laurencia. Laurencian acetogenins are entirly C15 non-terpenoid haloethers with different carbocyclic nuclei; a specimen of the Red Sea red alga L. obtusa was investigated for its acetogenin content. The dichloromethane extract of the air-dried red algal material was fractionated on aluminum oxide column preparative thin-layer chromatography. Three new rare C12 acetogenin derivatives (1-3) were isolated from the organic extract obtained from Laurencia obtusa, collected from the territorial Red Sea water of Saudi Arabia. The structures of the isolated metabolites were established by means of spectroscopical data analyses. Examining the isolated compounds in activated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) revealed potent Anti-inflammatory activity as evidenced by inhibition of NFκB and release of other inflammatory mediators like TNF-α, IL-1β and IL-6.

Keywords: Red Sea, red algae, fatty acids, spectroscopy, anti-inflammatory

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Authors: Kaoutar Zellat, Tahar Kadri

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The purpose of new aseismic techniques is to provide an additional means of energy dissipation, thereby reducing the transmitted acceleration into the superstructure. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of aseismic bearings technique and understand the behavior of seismically isolated bridges by such devices a three-span continuous deck bridge made of reinforced concrete is considered. The bridge is modeled as a discrete model and the relative displacements of the isolation bearing are crucial from the design point of view of isolation system and separation joints at the abutment level. The systems presented here are passive control systems and the results of some important experimental tests are also included. The results show that the base shear in the piers is significantly reduced for the isolated system as compared to the non isolated system in the both directions of the bridge. This indicates that the use of aseismic systems is effective in reducing the earthquake response of the bridge.

Keywords: aseismic bearings, bridge isolation, bridge, seismic response

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Authors: Fitria Ningsih

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This study concerns on the process of making corpus obtained from Indonesian year 4 students’ free writing compared to the vocabulary taught in English language textbooks. 369 students’ sample writings from 19 public elementary schools in Malang, East Java, Indonesia and 5 selected English textbooks were analyzed through corpus in linguistics method using AdTAT -the Adelaide Text Analysis Tool- program. The findings produced wordlists of the top 100 words most frequently used by students and the top 100 words given in English textbooks. There was a 45% match between the two lists. Furthermore, the classifications of the top 100 most frequent words from the two corpora based on part of speech found that both the Indonesian and English languages employed a similar use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and prepositions. Moreover, to see the contextualizing the vocabulary of learning materials towards the students’ need, a depth-analysis dealing with the content and the cultural views from the vocabulary taught in the textbooks was discussed through the criteria developed from the checklist. Lastly, further suggestions are addressed to language teachers to understand the students’ background such as recognizing the basic words students acquire before teaching them new vocabulary in order to achieve successful learning of the target language.

Keywords: corpus, frequency, English, Indonesian, linguistics, textbooks, vocabulary, wordlists, writing

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Authors: Emmanuel Ekpa, Adaji Andrew, Queen Opaluwa, Isreal Daraobong

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Three (3) indigenous bacteria species (Bacillus spp, Acinectobacter spp and Moraxella spp) previously isolated from contaminated soil of some auto mechanic workshops were used for bioremediation studies on some irrigation water used at Sarkin-noma Fadama farms located in Lokoja Kogi State, Nigeria. This was done in order to investigate their bioremediation potentials using a simple pour plate method. The physicochemical parameters and heavy metal analysis (using AAS iCE 3000) of the irrigation water were performed before and after inoculation of the isolated organisms. Nitrate and phosphate concentration were found to be 10.56mg/L and 12.63mg/L prior to inoculation while iron and zinc were 0.9569mg/L and 0.2245mg/L respectively. Other physicochemical parameters were also observed to be high prior to inoculation. After the bioremediation test (inoculation with the isolated organisms), a nitrate and phosphate content of 2.53mg/L and 2.61mg/L were recorded respectively, iron and zinc gave 0.1694mg/L and 0.0174mg/L concentrations while other physicochemical parameters measured were also found to be lower in their respective values. The implication of this present study is that a number of carefully isolated indigenous bacteria species are capable of reducing the amount of heavy metal concentrations in water. Also, non-metallic contaminants like nitrate and phosphate are susceptible to bioremediation in the presence of such efficient system.

Keywords: bioremediation, heavy metals, physicochemical parameters, Bacillus spp, Acinectobacter spp and Moraxella spp, AAS, spectrometer 3000

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Authors: Salwa Enneifer

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The research is intended to investigate Tunisian students’ own perception of the difficulties they encounter in the writing task. To achieve this objective, a questionnaire was administered to students enrolled in the ‘Faculty of Letters Arts and Humanities’ in Kairouan, in Tunisia. Students were classified into three groups: first-, second-, and third-year students. The researcher used 120 questionnaires filled in by the students as data for this study; moreover, 30 students participated in a semi-structured interview to complete the data. The questionnaire results revealed that Tunisian EFL students faced spelling and grammar difficulties. ANOVA also revealed that the first-year students did not recognise that Arabic and English greatly differ in their respective punctuation systems. The second-year class, however, was fully aware of this difference. Additionally, the interview shed light on other aspects or different difficulties experienced by students in writing: a cruel ‘lack of vocabulary’, Arabic language interference, the organisation of the essay and especially the academic essay, and difficulty with writing an argumentative essay.

Keywords: difficulties, writing, Tunisian, EFL students

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Authors: Christy M. Moen, Richard B. Townsley

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Introduction: Metastasis to the frontal bone in thyroid cancer is extremely rare. A literature review found only six cases of thyroid cancer that metastasised to the frontal bone, with two of those involving further bone sites. Case Report: The patient was originally referred to the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery team with an isolated mass on her forehead. Biopsies were performed, which showed this was likely a metastatic deposit from thyroid cancer. CT-PET scan showed this was an isolated lesion. The patient had a total thyroidectomy, and the forehead lesion was managed with radiotherapy. On interval scanning, the patient’s bony lesion had increased in size and had new lung nodules, which likely represented further metastasis. Conclusion: Isolated bony metastases to the frontal bone are rare. An important clinical principle to remember is that a bony metastasis from an unknown primary is more likely than primary bone cancer.

Keywords: cancer, thyroid, head and neck, surgery

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Authors: Maha Saliba Foster

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Speech perception has been recognized as a bi-sensory process involving the auditory and visual channels. Compared to the auditory modality, the contribution of the visual signal to speech perception is not very well understood. Studying how the visual modality affects speech recognition can have pedagogical implications in second language learning, as well as clinical application in speech therapy. The current investigation explores the potential effect of speech visual cues on the perception of Arabic emphatics (AEs). The corpus consists of 36 minimal pairs each containing two contrasting consonants, an AE versus a non-emphatic (NE). Movies of four Lebanese speakers were edited to allow perceivers to have partial view of facial regions: lips only, lips-cheeks, lips-chin, lips-cheeks-chin, lips-cheeks-chin-neck. In the absence of any auditory information and relying solely on visual speech, perceivers were above chance at correctly identifying AEs or NEs across vowel contexts; moreover, the models were able to predict the probability of perceivers’ accuracy in identifying some of the COIs produced by certain speakers; additionally, results showed an overlap between the measurements selected by the computer and those selected by human perceivers. The lack of significant face effect on the perception of AEs seems to point to the lips, present in all of the videos, as the most important and often sufficient facial feature for emphasis recognition. Future investigations will aim at refining the analyses of visual cues used by perceivers by using Principal Component Analysis and including time evolution of facial feature measurements.

Keywords: Arabic emphatics, machine learning, speech perception, visual speech perception

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Authors: Syed Hamid Farooq Bukhari

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This study intends to clarify the Friday sermon by evaluating the formation of its discourse, the composition, and selection of its subject matters, the structure, and functions of its rules as well as the outline of its communication proceeds, and the distinctiveness of its words along with definite provisions. In this research, a qualitative and descriptive method is used to draw out conclusions. This paper considers the sermon mechanism of the speech and advances it contextually. The information was composed in Pakistan and several of its mosques supposing the imams of the city and the location of the mosques. The presentation and analysis of the facts have directed to the subsequent conclusions: (1) the Friday sermon holds verbal discussion that has habitual and classic formation, (2) the approaches of the formation of the subjects consist of storytelling, quotation as well as the use of accepted terms, (3) the composition of the codes involves Arabic, English, Urdu, and many other local languages, (4) the expressions of the speech include all types of sermon acts, (5) different requisites emerge in the sermons demonstrating that the Friday sermon functions as an index or usage of verbal communication in an exacting field.

Keywords: Friday, sermons, Pakistan, social

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Authors: Wesam Mohamed Abdel Khalek Ibrahim

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This paper examines the use of metaphors in Arabic political news discourse, focusing particularly on the headlines of the news articles relating to the Egyptian political situation in the period from June 2012 to October 2013. Metaphors are skilfully manipulated in the headlines to influence the public stance towards several events and entities including Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood (MB), Morsi, the June 30th uprising, Al-Sisi and the Armed Forces. The findings reveal that Arabic political news discourse shares basic features with its English counterpart, namely the use of metaphors as persuasive strategies and the presence of certain target domains. Insights gained from this study feed back into the conceptual metaphor theory by providing further evidence to the universality of metaphors.

Keywords: conceptual metaphor theory, political discourse, news discourse, Egyptian political situation

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Authors: I. Savitskaya, A. Kistaubayeva, A. Zhubanova, I. Blavachinskaiya, D. Ibrayeva, M. Abdulzhanova, A. Otarbay, A.Isabekova

Abstract:

This study was conducted for the investigation of number of cellulolytic bacteria and their ability in decomposition. Seven samples surface soil were collected on cellulose Zailiskii Alatau slopes. Cellulolitic activity of new strains of Bacillus, isolated from soil is determined. Isolated cellulose degrading bacteria were screened for determination of the highest cellulose activity by quantitative assay using Congo red, gravimetric assay and colorimetric DNS method trough of the determination of the parameters of sugar reduction. Strains are assigned to: B.subtilis, B.licheniformis, B. cereus and, В. megaterium. Bacillus strains consisting of several different types of cellulases have broad substrate specificity of cellulase complexes formed by them. Cellulolitic bacteria were recorded to have highest cellulase activity and selected for optimization of cellulase enzyme production.

Keywords: cellulose-degrading bacteria, cellulase complex, foothills soil, screening

Procedia PDF Downloads 452

Authors: Checkfaith I. Aizebeoje, Temitope O. Lawal, Bolanle A. Adeniyi

Abstract:

The overuse and abuse of antibiotics in treating zoonotic infections in humans and opportunistic infections in rabbit has contributed to the increase in antimicrobial drug resistance, therefore, an alternative to antibiotics is needed in treating these infections. The study was carried out to determine the antimicrobial activity of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) isolated from rabbit’s faeces against multidrug-resistant (MDR) pathogens isolated from the same rabbit. Twelve faecal samples and twelve swabs from fur samples were randomly collected aseptically from apparently healthy rabbits from Ajibode, Ibadan and University of Ibadan research farm in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria. Lactic acid bacteria and multidrug-resistant pathogens were isolated using appropriate agar media and identified by partial sequencing of the 16SrRNA gene. Antibiotic susceptibility pattern of isolated bacteria and LAB were determined by the agar diffusion method. The antibacterial activity of the LAB against the test pathogens was determined using the agar overlay and agar diffusion methods. The pathogens Myroides gitamensis, Citrobacter rodentium, Acinetobacter johnsonii, Enterobacter oryzendophyticus and Serratia marcescens as well as twenty-eight (28) species of LAB belonging to Acetobacter and Lactobacillus genera were identified and characterized. Lactobacillus plantarum had the highest (60.71%) occurrence of the LAB. Viable cells and cell free supernatant (CFS) of isolated LAB inhibited the growth of the test organisms with the largest zone of inhibition (40 mm) produced by Lactobacillus plantarum against Citrobacter rodentium. This study showed that LAB from rabbit possess considerable antibacterial activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria from the same environment.

Keywords: antibacterial activities, cell-free supernatant, lactic acid bacteria; multidrug-resistant pathogens, rabbits’ faeces

Procedia PDF Downloads 136

Authors: Eqbal M. A. Dauqan, A. Aminah

Abstract:

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the blood lipid profile and liver lipid peroxidation in normal rat fed with different concentrations of Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal. Thirty six Sprague Dawley male rats each weighing between 180-200g were randomly divided into two groups. Each group contains eighteen rats and were divided into three groups of 6 rats per group. The rats were fed ad libitum with commercial rat’s feed and tap water containing different concentrations of Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal (3% and 6%) for 4 weeks. The results at 4 weeks showed that there was no significant difference (p≤0.05) in the total cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (TG) between the control group and treated groups while the results for the high density lipoprotein (HDL-C) showed a significant decrease (P≥0.05) at the 3% and 6% of gum arabic treated groups compared to control group. There was a significant increase (P≥0.05) in low density lipoprotein (LDL-C) with 3% and 6% of gum Arabic (GA) groups compared to the control group. The study indicated that there was no significant (p≤0.05) effect on TC and TG but there was significant effect (P≥0.05) on HDL-C and LDL-C in blood lipid profile of normal rat. The results showed that after 4 weeks of treatment the malondialdehyde (MDA) value in rat fed with 6% of A. seyal group was significantly higher (P≥0.05) than control or other treated groups of A. seyal and A. senegal studied. Thus, the two species of gum arabic did not have beneficial effect on blood lipid profile and lipid peroxidation.

Keywords: Acacia senegal, acacia seyal, lipid profile, lipid peroxidation, malondialdehyde (MDA)

Procedia PDF Downloads 257

Authors: Cristina Bahón Arnaiz

Abstract:

Many Asian languages, such as Korean and Japanese, are well-known for their wide use of sound symbolic words or ideophones. This is a very particular characteristic which enriches its lexicon hugely. Ideophones are a class of sound symbolic words that utilize sound symbolism to express aspects, states, emotions, or conditions that can be experienced through the senses, such as shape, color, smell, action or movement. Ideophones have very particular characteristics in terms of sound symbolism and morphology, which distinguish them from other words. The phonological characteristics of ideophones are vowel ablaut or vowel gradation and consonant mutation. In the case of Korean, there are light vowels and dark vowels. Depending on the type of vowel that is used, the meaning will slightly change. Consonant mutation, also known as consonant ablaut, contributes to the level of intensity, emphasis, and volume of an expression. In addition to these phonological characteristics, there is one main morphological singularity, which is reduplication and it carries the meaning of continuity, repetition, intensity, emphasis, and plurality. All these characteristics play an important role in both linguistics and literature as they enhance the meaning of what is trying to be expressed with incredible semantic detail, expressiveness, and rhythm. The following study will analyze the ideophones used in a single paragraph of a Korean novel, which add incredible yet subtle detail to the meaning of the words, and advance the expressiveness and rhythm of the text. The results from analyzing one paragraph from a novel, after presenting the phonological and morphological characteristics of Korean ideophones, will evidence the important role that ideophones play in literature. 

Keywords: ideophones, mimetic words, phonomimes, phenomimes, psychomimes, sound symbolism

Procedia PDF Downloads 150

Authors: Nihal Esam Abuzinadah, Areej Abbas Malibari, Arwa Abdulaziz Allinjawi, Paul Krause

Abstract:

Deaf and hearing-impaired students face many obstacles throughout their education, especially with learning applied sciences such as computer programming. In addition, there is no clear signs in the Arabic Sign Language that can be used to identify programming logic terminologies such as while, for, case, switch etc. However, hearing disabilities should not be a barrier for studying purpose nowadays, especially with the rapid growth in educational technology. In this paper, we develop an Avatar based system to teach computer programming to deaf and hearing-impaired students using Arabic Signed language with new signs vocabulary that is been developed for computer programming education. The system is tested on a number of high school students and results showed the importance of visualization in increasing the comprehension or understanding of concepts for deaf students through the avatar.

Keywords: hearing-impaired students, isolation, self-esteem, learning difficulties

Procedia PDF Downloads 145