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Requests are considered one of the most face threating acts as they threaten the face of the hearer. Language users need to be aware of the pragmatic knowledge of the language they are using if they want to be native-like in their communication. Acquiring the pragmatic knowledge of the target language allows language users to produce messages that are culturally and socially appropriate. Lacking such knowledge would probably results in communication breakdown or misunderstanding between the native and non-native speakers of that language. It can also send a negative image about the speaker and interpreted by native speakers as being impolite. Investigations in the current study will be on the performance and perception of the requistive behavior of Saudi interlanguage learners (Saudi IL) as compared to the native British English speakers (BE). The current study address two main topics: first, the pragmalinguistic knowledge, and the focus are on the level of directness of the request act, the internal modifications, and the supportive move; and second, sociopragmatic knowledge. One hundred and eight participated in the study and formed three cultural groups: 36 native English-speaking British students (BE), 36 Saudi Arabic learners of English (Saudi IL), and 36 Saudi Arabic natives (SA). Discourse completion task (DCT) is the main data instrument used in the current study to elicit pragmalinguistic data, and it includes a single-turn response. Participants are asked to provide a written response to 12-given described situations. Scaled-Response Questionnaire (SRQ) is used to elite the sociopragmatic knowledge of the participants. The results of the study showed several interlanguage features of the Saudi IL learners in their request realizations, and the main result is that the three groups relied heavily on the conventionally indirect strategy of Query Preparatory (QP). Regarding the measurement of power difference and social distance, BE group were more apt to lessen the power distinction and stress the mutuality of 'showing respect', whereas Saudi IL group were inclined to accentuate unequal power distributions and emphasize the hierarchical asymmetry. Saudi IL group were found to prefer using external modifications more than the native speakers. In contrast, the Saudi IL showed less preference for employing internal modifications.

Background: Stroke commonly occurs in the middle-aged and elderly population, and the diagnosis of early stroke remains challenging. Patients who have suffered a stroke have different gait patterns compared to healthy people. Advanced techniques of motion analysis have been routinely used in the clinical assessment of cerebral palsy. However, so far, little research has been done on the direct diagnosis of early stroke patients using motion analysis. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate whether patients with stroke have a different gait compared to healthy people and what the features of the gait are after stroke. Methods: Thirteen patients with hemiplegia caused by both types of stroke (ischaemic or haemorrhagic) were recruited for this study (all male; age 68.77±5.02 years; height 169.9±5.7 cm; body weight 81.61±8.74 kg) plus 20 healthy subjects (12 male and 8 female; age 65.05±7.63 years; height 166.3±6.1 cm; body weight 75.35±12.74 kg). All subjects’ gait data were collected using Vicon Nexus® to obtain the gait parameters, kinetic, and kinematic parameters of the hip, knee, and ankle joints in three planes of both limbs. Participants were asked to walk along a 10 m walkway at a comfortable speed. There were ten trials of walking. From the recorded trials, three good ones were analysed using a Vicon Plug-in-Gait model to obtain the gait parameters, e.g. walking speed, cadence, stride length, and joint parameters, e.g. joint angle, force, moments, and power. The gait data were further analysed by using neural network models and principal component method in terms of diagnosis and prediction of strokes. Result: The temporal-spatial variables of the stroke subjects were compared with the healthy subjects, and it was found that there was a significant difference between the groups. The step length, speed, and cadence were lower in stroke subjects compared to the healthy group. The stroke patients group showed a significantly decreased gait speed (mean and SD: 0.85± 0.33 m/s), cadence ( 96.71±16.14 step/min), and step length (0.509±017 m) compared to the healthy group, where the gait speed was 1.2±0.11 m/s, cadence 112± 8.33 step/min, and step length 0.648±0.43 m. Moreover, it was observed that patients with stroke have significant differences regarding their ankle, hip, and knee joints’ kinematic and kinetic in all planes (sagittal x, coronal y, and transverse z) compared with the healthy group. Using the neural network models, the stroke gait could be identified with accuracies as high as 95%-100%, although the results were from a small sample size. The principal component method could partially be helpful to identify the stroke gait. Discussion and Conclusion: Stroke patients showed increase ankle plantar flexion and decreased dorsiflexion on the affected side. In the terminal double stance phase, they had increased hip flexion and hip abduction in order to clear their foot from the floor. Also, stroke patients had a lack of knee flexion, which causes a stiff knee gait. These results suggest that the biomechanical behaviour of the hip and ankle joint during the gait cycle in patients with stroke is closely related. These findings could help physiotherapists to understand gait problems after stroke and provide a justification for applying their treatment to the correct areas. The neural network can potentially be used to diagnose the strokes and further modelling with larger sample size should be carried out in the future.

Diabetes is a world-wide issue which can affect people at any age. It is ranked as one of the top 10 diseases responsible for death worldwide. According to the International Diabetes Federation, 424.9 million people worldwide were estimated to have diabetes in 2017 (90% with type 2 diabetes) and this number is projected to reach 629 million patients by 2045. The current treatments for managing diabetes are linked with a number of side effects including severe hypoglycaemia, permanent neurological deficit, stomach-ache, headache, lactic acidosis, liver damage, dizziness and death in some cases. Therefore, there is a need for improved anti-diabetic drugs with fewer side effects to enhance patient compliance and to control blood glucose levels more tightly. Natural products and plants in particular, offer an alternative to synthetic drugs. Lathyrus linifolius is a plant whose tubers have historically been used as an appetite suppressant during medieval times in times when food was scarce. Due to the close link between appetite suppressants and the treatment of diabetes/obesity, the plant's leaves and tubers were examined for their potential anti-diabetic and antiobesity activity. This project aimed to: 1) produce Lathyrus linifolius extracts using Soxhlet apparatus extraction from which bioactive compounds could be isolated by column chromatography and characterised by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR); 2) assess the anti-diabetic and anti-obesity activity of the extracts and compounds; 3) investigate the anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant activity of the extracts and compounds in in vitro assays; 4) identify the effects of the tuber treatment on the gene expression of appropriate diabesity components in normal rat pancreatic tissues obtained from a previous study in which rats were fed with tubers; and 5) re-assess Lathyrus linifolius effects on obese Zucker rats and monitor the effects on body weight, food intake, water intake and blood glucose levels. 1) Four compounds were isolated for the first time from the ethyl acetate extract of the tubers; these were betulinic acid, lupeol, stigmasterol and β-sitosterol. The isolated compounds are known for their beneficial effects on hyperglycaemia and obesity to some extent. Betulinic acid was the major component in the tubers and leaves. 2) In biological assays, the ethyl acetate extract and betulinic acid from the tubers were potent α-glucosidase inhibitors (P<0.05) with IC50 of 9.5 µg/ml and 5.5 µM, respectively. Moreover, the leaf ethyl acetate and methanol extracts were also strong inhibitors of α-glucosidase (P<0.05) with IC50 of 0.58 µg/ml and 4.3 µg/ml, respectively. In an anti-obesity assay, based on pancreatic lipase, the ethyl acetate tuber extract at 30 µg/ml and betulinic acid at 30 µM showed 50% enzyme inhibition (P<0.05); and the hexane extract from the leaves showed 30% inhibition. In HepG2 cells, leaf hexane extract showed a significant increase in glucose uptake which was comparable to that of insulin. These findings showed promising results for the plant to be used as an anti-diabetic and anti-obesity agent. Inflammation and oxidative stress are implicated in diabesity and determined the subsequent investigation. 3) Moreover, all the plant extracts and isolated compounds at 30 µg/ml or 30 µM showed a greater than 70% protection (P<0.05) in L929 cells (mouse fibroblasts commonly used for anti-inflammatory studies) from the cytotoxic effects of tumour necrosis factor alpha (10 µM). This was followed by investigating the ability of Lathyrus linifolius to inhibit nuclear factor kappa-light-chain-enhancer of activated B cells (NF-ƙB) in the NCTC cell line (human skin cells transfected with a NF-ƙB luciferase reporter vector, used in anti-inflammatory studies). Betulinic acid, ethyl acetate extract of the tubers, hexane and ethyl acetate extracts of the leaves inhibited NF-ƙB which gave a NF-ƙB % inhibition of 70, 40, 30 and 30, respectively. A betulinic acid inhibition curve was performed and found to inhibit NF-ƙB expression with an IC50 of 22.8 µM. Oxidative stress was then investigated following the positive findings in the anti-inflammatory assays. Lathyrus linifolius extracts and isolated compounds were not reactive oxygen species-generators and significantly (P<0.05) protected cells from reactive oxygen species generated by tert-butyl hydroperoxide in SH-SY5Y (neuronal), HepG2 (hepatic) and Panc1 (pancreatic) cells, except lupeol in HepG2 cells. In HepG2 cells, glutathione levels were significantly (P<0.05) increased by ethyl acetate extract of the tubers which confirmed the potential anti-oxidant activity of Lathyrus linifolius. 4) It was considered pertinent to carry out a retrospective investigation into any gene changes using RNA-Sequencing and real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) on RNA isolated from rat pancreatic tissues in a feeding study with Lathyrus linifolius tubers carried out by Woods (2017). It was found that the adiponectin gene (Adipoq) was highly up-regulated (P<0.05) whereas genes that contribute to pancreatic β-cells damage for example Il1β and Tnfrsf19 were downregulated (P<0.05). 5) Then, the biological effects of Lathyrus linifolius on an animal model for diabesity were followed up. Dried, powdered Lathyrus linifolius tubers (100-200 mg/kg BW) were dissolved in deionised water, mixed with Farley's rusks and given to obese Zucker rats daily for 16 days. However, the results showed that there were no effects on the body weight, food intake, water intake or blood glucose of Zucker rats and this may have occurred due to the low Lathyrus linifolius dosage used and the short duration of the study. It was decided not to carry out any further investigation (such as RNA- Sequencing) after this as there was no significant difference in results between the obese Zucker rats and normal rats as observed in the previous feed study. These findings suggest that compounds from Lathyrus linifolius could possibly be used as anti-diabetic and anti-obesity agents in the future, based on the positive results obtained from the in vitro and ex vivo assays in this study. This study should be followed by assessing the effects of Lathyrus linifolius on body weight, food intake, water intake and blood glucose in humans.

Universities face many challenges in trying to provide quality and equitable learning to the ever-increasing student numbers efficiently. Most of the challenges relate to limited financing, infrastructure and space, human resources and instruction materials. This calls for increasing resourcing of universities. Unfortunately, most of the literature indicates significant cuts in public funding to universities albeit their enrolment is rising. This necessitates among others rethinking the delivery of higher education. Increasingly, the use of the traditional classroom as the sole means to deliver higher education is proving ineffective and inefficient. The advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) have created more opportunities for universities to complement the traditional classroom to deliver their curricula. In Saudi Arabia, many universities continue to adopt e-learning systems to deliver their curricula. Nonetheless, reports highlight unwillingness to adopt e-learning systems by students and sometimes staff as a critical challenge. Using a mixed methods approach, this study draws on primary data from Saudi University Students and Lecturers, and empirical literature to propose a Gamified E-learning Systems Acceptance Framework (GELSAF) through a critical analysis of the most potent factors that affect students’ intention to accept e-learning systems in Saudi Arabian universities. Through expert interviews, students’ questionnaire and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), a Gamified E-learning Systems Acceptance Framework (GELSAF3) was generated. Within the GELSAF3 it was found that Game Elements (GE), Perceived Usefulness (PU), Computer Self-Efficacy (CSE), Subject Norm (SN), and Pleasure (PLS) significantly influence the students’ Intention to Use (ITU) gamified e-learning systems in a positive way. On the other hand, whereas Image (IMG) is positively associated with ITU, it does not significantly influence ITU. Based on the magnitudes of the standardized Beta Coefficients and Critical Ratios, the findings indicate that CSE, PLS, and PU were the most influential factors on ITU. Unexpectedly, the measurement model for Facilitating Conditions (FC) did not converge during its estimation due to having fewer measurement items and hence this factor was excluded from further analysis. The findings of this research were found to be of significant consequence to particularly Saudi Universities which have tried to adopt e-learning systems with limited success. Also, the research provides sound evidence to various stakeholders of higher education that could change the landscape for e-learning systems in Saudi Universities positively. In terms of policy, the study encourages stakeholders to among others have policy frameworks that enable: assessment of their students’ needs with regards to e-learning and to identify the key features necessary in such an e-learning system; blending of learning with educational games and play activities; investments in enabling their students to become fully skilled with computers and IT so as to have a positive self-perception of computer skills mastery; taking care of the popular norms of the students’ community and also anticipate the dynamics within such norms to inform decisions for adopting gamified e-learning systems.