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Large middle cerebral artery (MCA) strokes remain a major cause for mortality and morbidity all over the world, and therefore early identification of patients with the highest risk for malignant cerebral edema is crucial for early intervention. Neutrophils to lymphocytes ratio (NLR) and peripheral total white blood cell (WBC) count are inflammatory markers done routinely for all patients, and this study evaluated the use of NLR and elevated white blood cell count within the first 24 h of MCA ischemic stroke onset, with the absence of significant hemorrhagic transformation, to predict malignant cerebral edema.A total of 156 patients with large MCA strokes were included. We collected demographic, clinical, radiological data, and NLR and WBCs within the first 24 h from admission.We excluded patients who had any underlying infections diagnosed 7 days before or within 72 h after admission. We used a body temp of 38 C or more, abnormal CXR or abnormal urine analysis within the first 72 h to exclude patients with possible infections.We excluded immune-compromised patients and patients on steroid therapy. We compared the NLR and WBC count in patients who developed malignant cerebral edema versus the patients who did not. NLR3.5 and3.5 was used for comparison. We then conducted multivariate logistic regression models to explore the relationship between cerebral edema, WBCs and NLR count simultaneously.NLR, WBC, radiological involvement of more than 50% of MCA territory infarction on presentation, hyperdense MCA sign, and NIH stroke scale were all significantly higher in patients with malignant cerebral edema within the first 24 h. Using univariate logistic regression, NLR performs better than WBC when predicting the occurrence of malignant cerebral edema (AUC = 0.74 vs. 0.62). However, NIH stroke scale scores, and radiological involvement of more than 50% of MCA territory infarction on the first 24 h of presentation on CT scan both showed better discriminative performance for malignant cerebral edema than NLR (AUC = 0.84 and 0.76, respectively). When combined, NLR3.5 paired with the NIH stroke scale score had the best predictive performance (AUC = 0.87).NLR3.5 can be used for early prognostication in patients with large vessel MCA ischemic strokes with no significant hemorrhagic transformation within the first 24 h regardless if they had reperfusion therapy or not. Combining NLR of3.5 in addition to high NIHSS provided the best predictive model in our study. Further studies are needed to further develop the best predictive model in diverse populations.

Participation in and adding content to social tagging tools is important for these tools to achieve their purpose of classifying and organizing information. Users of social tagging tools are driven to participate and add tags by extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation is dominating research as a main predictor of why users use information systems. Social tagging tools, as a subset of social media tools, are distinguished by their unique social aspect that makes intrinsic motivation a potential driver for users to add tags to content. Intrinsic motivation, when applied to social tagging tools, could entail many shades that represent different users’ motives for using such tools. In this paper, we add a rich concept of intrinsic motivation to include hedonism as a main predictor of users’ behavior on social tagging tools. We empirically validate a previously proposed theoretical model of three dimensional concepts of hedonism with three components describing individuals’ hedonic state when interacting with social tagging tools: explorability, curiosity, and enjoyment. After a robust and thorough data analysis using structured equation modeling, the results confirm our theoretical model and suggest using a richer concept of enjoyment to reflect a hedonic dimension when investigating intrinsic motivation with interactive social media tools. Our validated model could be the spark of new factors that have the potential to influence user acceptance of information systems in general and in social media tools. This research contributes to the development of attitude-behavior theories that could explain users’ acceptance of dynamic web

Companies are spending a large amount of money on Information Technology (IT) projects, with an objective to improve operational performance and gain competitive advantages. Despite such spending, many IT projects fail to meet their expectations either be finishing late, exceeding the allocated budget, or failing to deliver the project benefits. Many factors impact the success of an IT project. This study proposes a model for the factors that could help IT project succeed in meeting their expectation. Specifically, the paper proposes that senior leader perception of the project value, leaders’ perception of strategic consistency, and communicating the value of the project to end-users could facilitate the successful execution of the IT project. This study could help project managers understand the factors that contribute to the success or failure of IT projects to avert costs associated with project failures.

Web 2.0 had a great influence on the Web creating a collaborative environment where everyone can share his input resulting in an increase in invaluable information for web users. Social tagging tools are examples of the applications that enable users to build shared tagged content that works as a natural classification of relevant information. This paper highlights the difference between tags in different systems such as folksonomy, taxonomy. Further, the paper presents a brief survey of different techniques for creating natural folksonomies thus building precision in search and navigation. The paper explores the types of tags and their components with a detailed highlight of tag navigation and tag clouds.

Users' information seeking behavior is an important topic especially for organizations that seek to understand how users browse and search for information. Information nature is elusive and hard to describe given that different people use information for different purposes and different ways. This study aims at evaluating and reviewing information seeking models that have emerged in Information Retrieval (IR) literature. In this paper, the classic IR models are explicitly reviewed. Previous IR models are categorized into two main types reflecting its interactive and passive nature. A holistic model of IR is suggested to cover for missing points of previous models and to account for the interactive nature of today's social and dynamic information environment. The paper concludes with general observations on the current state of IR and how users' IR needs are changing with change in the IR environment

The idea of creating smart homes is not a new one, it has been around since the early 1900s. However, the need to have more automated, proactive, and sustainable smart home, requires a high dependency on the internet, which created a new challenge of information security issues in addition to physical security issues that should be solved recently. In this paper, we propose a prototype of smart home that ensures the physical and cyber security of the systems of the designed smart home. In our prototype, we support the design of open system where the owner can select multi-vendor of the smart home to deploy smart services and functions at home, while ensure the security using System Incident and Event Monitoring systems. Our prototype uses security intelligence to improve the responsive way to both physical and cyber security threats and risks. The requirements of the proposed system have been collected in collaboration with Dubai Electrical and Water Authority (DEWA).

It is widely accepted that modern technology has increasingly influenced higher educational institutions to deploy novel technology practices to achieve efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Cloud computing, offers various opportunities for higher education institutions including custom-made solutions to meet universities needs. This study aims at providing guidelines on how and when to deploy cloud computing in higher education. The study primarily focuses on UAE higher educational institutions. It discusses the potential strategic benefits of cloud computing in higher education and highlights its evolving trends. A case study of successful cloud computing implementation will be addressed to demonstrate the outcomes. The data was collected from a case study by means of an in-depth interview with IT experts working within the institution. The results of the case study reveals the effectiveness and substantial efficiency of cloud computing.

Although, the value of Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is increasing and it is receiving a substantial attention in the scientific and industrial communities, there is a paucity of research of users' adoption of this technology. In this paper, we propose a user acceptance model for mobile cloud computing based on the famous Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) by highlighting factors that can contribute in predicting future use of MCC. This research has the potential to significantly contribute to the development of attitude-behavior theories that would better explain users' acceptance of MCC applications. The findings could also provide a structured and more systematic approach for mobile cloud service providers on how to build their services and promoting them to the market.

Although numerous studies have examined the crowdsourcing phenomenon, little consensus exists regarding the classification of distinct types of activities within crowdsourcing. In this study, we identify and classify 12 crowdsourcing initiatives that comprise the key categories of crowdsourcing: Crowdpedia, Fansourcing, Crowdnetworking, Crowdsharing, Crowdvoting, Crowdfunding, Ideation, Open Innovation, User Innovation, Scisourcing, Crowd-Relief, and Open Source Software. Our main objective is to establish the similarities and differences between basic crowdsourcing initiatives and develop a typology based on nine crowdsourcing dimensions that we develop. This crowdsourcing typology will provide a roadmap on which researchers can anchor their research and practitioners can make more informed decisions about which category of crowdsourcing they should seek. Copyright © 2016 ASAC. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors influencing employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior on social tagging supported systems. Using the strong theoretical background of the well-known technology acceptance model (TAM), this paper proposes and empirically validates a model that fits the social and technical nature of social tagging tools within the public sector. The analyses in this paper were based on data collected from a large survey of more than 480 respondents working for two public organizations in the United States. The findings demonstrate a significant impact of the role of social presence in encouraging employees to create and share content. Further, there is a strong relationship between the benefits employees receive from using tagging tools and their creation and sharing of tagged content. Specifically, the following factors showed a significant impact on employees’ creation and sharing behavior, specifically their attitudes towards and intentions to create and share tags: perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, social presence, and pro-sharing norms. For researchers, the paper offers an opportunity to further study knowledge-sharing behavior regarding social media technologies. The findings should motivate practitioners to inject these tools with a social aspect so that employees are encouraged to share content.

Designed to be intuitive with interactive character, tablets are becoming popular and trendy tools to enhance children's learning. Because of the novelty of tablet devices, research on the effectiveness of such tools in children' learning is still in its infancy. The aim of this study is to explore the positive and negative influence of tablets on children's learning within the UAE. A survey was distributed to parents of children aged five through ten to seek their input regarding the influence of tablets on their children learning. The results have shown positive insight in children's ability to learn from tablets. Specifically, features of tablets such as animation, interactivity, rotation, and touch screen have shown a significant contribution on children's capabilities to learn.

The unabated plethora of research activities to augment multifarious mobile devices by leveraging cloud resources have created new research field called Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). Recently, researchers have found Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) to be a promising venture combining the advantage of both the cloud and mobility in giving users available resources on the cloud wherever they are using their mobile phone. Despite its benefits, many challenges still remain with MCC. This paper addressed recent challenges ranging from limited computational capacity, connectivity, security, latency, and heterogeneity. Solutions for these challenges are suggested including mobile processes offloading, using HTML5 technologies to compensate for connectivity loss, SDN centralized control features for data security, utilizing the cloud for time consuming applications, and using cross platform applications neutralizes heterogeneous technologies. Finally, the paper concludes with an extracted list of new research idea for scholars to work on to further enhance MCC.

Central etiologies of bilateral vocal cord paralysis leading to respiratory stridor are uncommon, as they require bilateral disruption of the laryngeal motor fibers. Here we present a young woman with multiple vascular risk factors, including ischemic stroke in the right medulla occurring 3 months prior, who presented with acute inspiratory stridor. All respiratory parameters were normal including arterial blood gas, and neck and pulmonary imaging. Direct laryngoscopy showed bilaterally bowed vocal cords, with decreased mobility and paradoxical adduction with each inspiratory cycle. On the third hospital day, neurological signs including a right hemiparesis became evident. Brain magnetic resonance imaging showed a diffusion restriction in the left medial pons likely disrupting the laryngeal motor fibers to the ponto-medullary neuronal network. In the absence of tracheobronchial obstruction, physicians should be alert to the central causes of stridor including ischemic stroke. Additionally, paradoxical movements of the vocal cords can be an ominous sign.