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Currently, both job stress and presenteeism are critical problems. Job stress carries enormous costs for healthcare workers and nurses in terms of overall wellbeing, presenteeism, and turnover, which in turn affect the quality of patient healthcare services. The objectives of this research were to uncover the extent of presenteeism and job stress among nurses in hospitals in Hafr Al-Batin, a city in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A descriptive, correlational, cross-sectional study was conducted. The study sample included 146 nurses working in Hafr Al-Batin hospitals. Data were collected from May to June 2020. For analysis, the researcher used two tools, the Expanded Nursing Stress Scale (ENSS) and the Stanford Presenteeism Scale-6 (SPS-6). The data was subsequently analyzed by descriptive statistics and Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Study results showed that the mean values of job stress and presenteeism were both high. Furthermore, there was a relationship between the overall presenteeism and overall job stress experienced among staff nurses. The results of this research would aid both nursing administrators and hospital managers in designing effective strategies to reduce job stress and manage presenteeism among staff nurses in the hospitals of Hafr Al-Batin.

This article defines a new class of meromorphic parabolic starlike functions in the punctured unit disc D*={z∈C:0

The procedure adopted for development of a survey instrument to measure the perceptions and attitudes of Saudi managers on the benefits laws has been described in this paper. The commonly adopted procedure of determining the scales and items for the survey was followed. The context-specific requirements were considered in determining the items to be included in the two scales. The full questionnaire contained relevant demographic items, eight items each for perceptions and attitudes measurement and a final open question for whatever the survey participants wished to say about the topic of survey. A pilot trial was done using the developed survey instrument to measure perceptions and attitudes of Saudi public sector managers on the benefits enjoyed by their workforce due to favourable labour laws. The results showed both perceptions and attitudes of managers to be positive. The results were explained in a number of different ways with the support of literature. Some limitations of this research, as scope for further research, have also been listed.

This paper studies the effect of thermal cyclic loading on the mechanical properties of concrete such as cylinder and cube compressive strength, splitting and flexural tensile strengths, and weight...

Research has shown that construction projects in Saudi Arabia have exhibited poor performance for the past three decades. The Saudi construction environment lacks many of the best practices found in more developed countries, such as prequalification, bonding, and 3rd party insurance. The government’s construction relies on the low bid delivery method and prequalified contractors using the Contractors’ Classification System (CCS). However, the current CCS does not accurately represent contractors’ capabilities and performance. This paper reviews all of the parts of the Saudi CCS, including the workflow and the evaluation criteria. This paper proposes to analyze the current classification system and identify the issues incorporated in the CCS regulations and classification process. This paper summarizes the authors’ critical review through interviews that have been carried out with key persons in the CCS. Several issues with the CCS are identified, such as no performance feedback, complexity of the system, and high resource requirements. The findings identify that the current CCS must be modified to be able to accurately reflect contractor capability and performance.

Prior works have suggested various strategies to increase construction waste recycling (CWR) rates. However, choosing the strategies is challenging without a lateral comparison. Therefore, this study aims to compare the usability of various strategies that target the enhancement of CWR implementation. To achieve this purpose, thirteen CWR enhancement strategies were identified from a systematic literature review. Then, questionnaire survey data were collected from 106 construction project managers. The collected data were analyzed via mean score ranking, normalization, overlap analysis, agreement analysis, and factor analysis. Additionally, the data were analyzed using a proposed formula for computing usability indexes using the cost, easiness, and effectiveness values. The results show that three strategies have high usability indexes: organize temporary bins in each construction zone, identify construction activities that produce recyclable materials, and enhance company policies related to CWR. These strategies with high usability indexes are consistent with the overlapping cheap, effective, and easy strategies. This study provides researchers and practitioners with optimal strategies for enhancing CWR implementation. Effective CWR enhancement strategies can improve CWR rates in construction projects. Future researchers can also adopt this study’s approach in computing usability indexes through questionnaire surveys.

This study explores the success factors of concrete recycling in construction projects, using Malaysia as a case study. The objectives include (1) identifying the critical success factors for concrete recycling in construction projects, (2) comparing the critical success factors between large enterprises (LEs) and small–medium enterprises (SMEs), and (3) developing constructs that group the critical success factors. First, a list of success factors was identified through semi-structured interviews with fifteen construction industry professionals and a systematic literature review of journal articles. This list was then incorporated into a questionnaire and disseminated to industry professionals. Eighty-nine valid responses were collected and analyzed using mean score ranking, normalization, agreement analysis, and factor analysis techniques. The analyses showed ten critical success factors for concrete recycling. The critical success factors include the availability of uniform standards for concrete recycling, adequate awareness among project stakeholders on concrete recycling, appropriate construction waste management plans, government policies to support concrete recycling, good marketing strategy for concrete recycling, good communication among employees, applications for recycled concrete in sub-industries, provisions in work method statements on concrete recycling, positive legislation toward concrete recycling, and availability of concrete recycling infrastructure. However, the percentage of agreement between SMEs and LEs for the ten critical success factors was only 22%. In other words, there is no consensus on criticality across organizational sizes. Finally, the critical success factors can be categorized into two interrelated groups: external and internal. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing the necessary success factors for concrete recycling. The study findings allow researchers and practitioners to develop strategies to promote concrete recycling.

Objective/Scope Accurate well production rate measurement is critical for reservoir management. The production rate measurement is carried out using surface devices, such as orifice flow meter and venturi flow meter. For large offshore fields development with a high number of wells, the installation and maintenance costs of these flowmeters can be significant. Therefore, an alternative solution needs to be developed. This paper described the successful implementation of Artificial Intelligence in predicting the production rate of big-bore gas wells in an offshore field. Methods, Procedures, Process Successful application of AI depends on capitalizing on a large set of data. Therefore, flowing parameters data were collected for more than 30 gas wells and totaling over 100,000 data points. These wells are producing gas with slight solid production from a high-pressure high-temperature field. In addition, these wells are equipped with a multistage choke that reduces the noise and vibration levels. An Artificial Neural Network is trained on the data using Gradient Descent method as the optimization algorithm. The network takes as an input the upstream and downstream pressure and temperature, and the choke size. The output is the gas rate measured in MMscf/day. Results, Observations, Conclusions The data set was divided into 70% for training the neural network and 30% for validation. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was used and the developed model compared exceptionally well with the gas rates measured from the calibrated venturi meters. The gas rate estimation was within a 5% error. The model was developed for two types of completions: 7" and 9-5/8" production tubing. One of the challenges was how to estimate the choke wear which plays a major role in the quality of the choke size data. A linear choke wear deterioration is applied in this case, while work in progress is taking place for acquiring acoustic data that can significantly improve the choke wear modeling. Novel/Additive Information The novel approach presented in this paper capitalizes on Al analytics for estimating accurate gas flow rate values. This approach has improved the reservoir data management by providing accurate production rate values which has drastically improved the reservoir simulation. Moreover, the robustness of the AI model has forced us to rethink the conventional design of installing a flow meter for every well. As shown in this paper, the AI model served as an alternative to conventional venturi meters. We believe that the application of AI models to other aspects of production surveillance will lead to a shift into how operators design production facilities.

This paper investigates the problem of rapid exponential stabilization for damped wave equations. Based on a new event-triggered impulsive control (ETIC) method, impulsive control was designed to solve the rapid exponential stabilization of a class of damped wave equations derived from brain activity. The effectiveness of our control was verified through a numerical example.

The construction sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) faces issues related to a lack of project management toolbox. Over two-thirds of public construction projects in the KSA suffer from schedule overruns that may exceed twice the length of the contracted period. The current paper aims to investigate how clients’ management inefficiency plays a major role in delaying project execution and final product delivery, which may deviate from the contracted terms and expected standards. To achieve this objective, two case studies of serious schedule overruns were subjected to investigative research. Contractual documents, preliminary and modified project schedules, meetings minutes, and change orders were examined. Field visits and personal communications, as well as meetings and interviews with key players, were also conducted. The results of the analysis indicate that weak professional construction management coupled with a failure to introduce and implement solutions in a timely manner leads to serious schedule overruns. Delays impacted project life-cycle processes from initiation to project closing. The lessons learned from the many issues surrounding the two projects shed light on problem areas. These lessons also indicate the potential effectiveness of a pro-active management office, established early in the process, in preventing deficiencies in planning and managing projects.

Background: non-adherence to medication is considered as one of the largest drug related issues in the medical field. It results in development of drug resistance besides other harmful effects on the health of individuals. Aim of the work: there is very little data about compliance in Saudi Arabia. So, we conducted this study to see the adherence to the antibiotics by the patients in Al-Ahsa comparing the urban and rural population. Methods: this was a cross sectional observational study in which 215 people were asked questions about the adherence to the antibiotics prescribed by physicians. A convenient sample of 215 people was selected due to the constraint of resources (Finance and time). A questionnaire was designed to include the questions about the adherence to the antibiotics prescribed besides demographic characteristics. Data were entered in SPSS statistic20 which was also used for analysis by using crosstab for the numeric data and chi-square was used to see if there was a relationship between variables. Results: the present results showed that 70.69% of the population was not adhering and 29.30% were adhering to the antibiotic course. In urban population, 38% of the people were adhering to the short term antibiotics compared to 22% in rural areas. Conclusion: there is a need for increasing the awareness about completing the antibiotic course among the people in general and in rural areas in particular.

An environmental management plan (EMP) can reduce the impact of construction projects on the environment. While there is an increasing trend to promote sustainability, effective EMP implementation in Malaysia is limited. In this study, we aim to investigate the challenges for implementing EMP at construction sites in Malaysia, identify the main issues among those challenges, and determine the interrelationships between the main challenges. We identified 30 potential challenges for implementing EMP through a systematic literature review of 41 papers and semi-structured interviews with 20 construction industry professionals. Subsequently, a survey was used to solicit opinions on the challenges. The collected data were analyzed using mean score, standard deviation, normalization, factor analysis, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). The results illustrate that 21 main challenges exist for implementing EMP in Malaysia. From these, eight main challenges can be grouped into two major components: people- and project-related challenges. ANOVA test results suggest different perceptions of the challenges between project owners, contractors, and consultants. The theoretical implications of this study include a profound understanding of the challenges in implementing EMP at construction sites in Malaysia and their underlying relations.

Policymakers are developing response strategies to reduce the impacts of COVID-19. However, developing response strategies without considering their relationships with the impacts of COVID-19 is ineffective. This study aims to model the causal relationships between COVID-19 impacts and response strategies in the construction industry, using Malaysia as a case study. To achieve this, a systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews with forty industry professionals were conducted, yielding 12 impacts and 22 response strategies. The impacts and strategies were inserted into a survey, and 107 valid responses were received. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to group the impacts and strategies. Then, partial least-squares structural equation modeling (PLS–SEM) was employed to identify the causal relationship between the impacts and strategies. The EFA results indicate that the underlying impacts are project- or material-related, and the underlying strategies are market stability and financial aid, supply chain and project support, and information and legislation. The PLS–SEM results indicate that supply chain and project support are required to address material-related impacts, and market stability and financial aid are required to address project-related impacts. This is the first paper that models the relationships between COVID-19 impacts and response strategies in the construction industry.

Background: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is a member of the family of the hepadna viridae, which is infectious for humans and a few animal species. At the beginning of the third millennium, HBV remains a major public health problem globally with more than one third of worlds’ population infected.Of these, 350–400 million suffer from chronic HBV infection. This infection has been identified as one of the most important causes of liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). According to the world health organization (WHO), more than 50 million cases of acute hepatitis B infection are reported annually with 5–10% of adults and up to 90% of infants becoming chronically infected. From the dangers that face the dentist and auxiliary dentist is infection transmission. This study was performed to search about the knowledge of viral hepatitis and ways to prevent transmission and protect the dentists from viral hepatitis. Methods: We conducted a descriptive cross-sectional study on dentists and dental auxiliaries working in private dental clinics in Al-Qassim city, Saudi Arabia. The total sample obtained was 98 dentists and dental auxiliaries. Results: Nearly (36.3%) aged from 25-30 years old, (31.6%) aged from 31-35 years old, (22.4%) aged from 20-24 years old, and (9.2%) above 35 years old. The majority were dental hygienists and dental graduates, (46.9%) and (40.8%), respectively. Almost the majority of participants (99%) had at least some knowledge about viral hepatitis. (52%) thought hepatitis B vaccine can be given as post-exposure prophylaxis. Conclusion: In conclusion, we need to emphasize on the preventive measures of transmission of viral hepatitis among dentistry clinical field doctors.

While concrete recycling is crucial to protecting the environment, its implementation in practice is low in many countries. This study aims to highlight challenges to concrete recycling. To achieve that aim, the study objectives are (1) to identify the main challenges to concrete recycling in construction projects, (2) to compare the main challenges between small–medium enterprises (SMEs) and large enterprises (LEs), and (3) to determine the underlying groups among the main challenges. Potential challenges were identified through a systematic literature review of journal articles and semi-structured interviews with fifteen industry practitioners. Then, the identified challenges were inserted into a questionnaire survey and distributed to industry practitioners. Eighty-nine valid responses were collected and analyzed using the mean score ranking, normalization, agreement analysis, and factor analysis techniques. The analyses show thirteen main challenges to concrete recycling. The main challenges include increased project duration, lack of national programs, lack of comprehensive rules and regulations, increased project cost, low demand for recycled concrete, low cost-effectiveness of concrete recycling, and increased transportation cost. However, there is no consensus on the criticality between SMEs and LEs. For example, increased project cost is the main challenge for SMEs but is only middlingly ranked for LEs. Finally, the main challenges can be categorized into three interrelated groups: people and technical, legal and environmental, and economic challenges. This study contributes to the literature by analyzing challenges that hinder concrete recycling in practice. The findings allow researchers and practitioners to develop strategies to reduce concrete recycling rejection.

The problem of litigation and disputes in the construction sector is a major impediment to a country’s development goals. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of high legal costs and long delays that arise due to litigation involving project owners, designers, contractors and other construction parties worldwide and in Saudi Arabia, as well as give recommendation according to the outcomes of this research. The causes of litigious behavior in Saudi Arabia and around the world were identified and documented; also the differences in litigation of the Saudi Arabian construction industry as compared to other countries were identified. Preliminary investigations revealed that there is some level of similarity in the nature of the causes. Thus, these causes were grouped into three main categories, which are expectation factors, communications factors and documentation factors. Further research based on existing literature showed that the practices used to minimize litigation in the construction industry were investigated. The following delivery processes were researched: Design-Build (DB) Delivery Method, Alliance Contracting, Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), Best Value Model (BVM), Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) and the Best Value Performance Information Procurement System (BV PIPS). Many of these delivery methods were found to have issues, which means the methods by observation do not seem to be the ideal solution to minimize litigation in the construction industry. The only delivery method found to have no litigation issues was the BV PIPS approach.

Design processes and analytical modeling are presented showing creation of a low-cost concentrating photovoltaic-thermoelectric (PV/TE) hybrid power system for research and laboratory teaching built using a small upcycled satellite dish. Today, concentrated solar hybrid PV/TE systems are drawing significant research attention and funding investment. However, the literature lacks examples of how this cutting-edge energy technology can be made accessible at low cost for STEAEM education at universities, vocational institutions, and high schools. By applying Energy Engineering Laboratory Module (EELM™) design principles and pedagogy, a process is presented to make this technology easily accessible at low cost. The concentrating solar hybrid PV/TE system presented here is divided into four subsystems: 1) a concentrator, 2) a PV/TE generator, 3) data acquisition, and 4) a cooling system. The key engineering decisions governing the design for each sub-system are described. In addition, a thermodynamic analysis is presented to predict the on-sun steady-state temperature profile of the PV/TE generator at the focus of the concentrator and to determine how much electrical power it will produce. The concentrator used is a salvaged miniature satellite dish, which is coated with mirrored tape to reflect sunlight upon a focal point. Scavenged at no cost, the satellite dish is a sectioned paraboloid of rotation offset from the vertex and the axis of symmetry. However, which paraboloid section the dish represents is unknown. A technique is presented to find the focal point and to use this information to correctly position a shadow-casting gnomon to ensure proper on-sun alignment. A method to experimentally confirm the focal location and size the PV is also provided. A key research question for solar concentrating hybrid PV/TE power systems at this size scale is whether it is better to actively cool the TE cold side via forced convection or simply allow cooling via natural convection. The thermodynamic heat balance analysis presented to address this question finds that while forced convection does better cool the PV module, increasing its efficiency and power output, the parasitic energy expenditure of the cooling fan far exceeds the additional power produced. It is therefore more beneficial to rely on natural convection on the TE cold side to maximize power production of the overall PV/TE module. Two experimental apparatuses were built consisting of a PV module backed by TE generators and instrumented with thermocouples to determine the internal temperature gradient while multi-meters read steady-state PV and TE power output. A halogen lamp placed at various distances from this array approximates concentrated sunlight, which is measured via pyranometer. These experiments validate conclusions drawn from the theoretical model.

Background: Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is the most common upper gastrointestinal disorder encountered in the elderly patient. It is highly prevalent worldwide with a prevalence of 10-20% in the western world. The health-related quality of life (HRQL) is lower in individuals with GERD than in the general population and is comparable to that in individuals with other chronic diseases. It has a considerable impact on the quality of the patient’s life through its symptoms and economically by following consultation procedures and medical care. A few studies have been done in Saudi Arabia using general population as subject and have reported a very high prevalence. Objective: (1) Estimation of gastro GERD prevalence among school teachers in Qassim region. (2) To assess the impact of GERD symptoms on teacher’s daily life activity. (3) To compare prevalence and risk factors of GERD between age-groups and gender. Methodology: A cross-sectional study that was conducted among 200 school teachers selected by multi-stage stratified random sample method in Qassim region during 2015. A reliable and valid self-administered GERD questionnaire for diagnosis of GERD was used. GERD-HRQL questionnaire was used to assess the impact of GERD on the patient’s life quality. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences Version 20.0; Chi-square was used to test the association between GERD and sociodemographic data. Results: The total number of the participants was 200 with an equal male to female ratio. 55% (116/200) of the participants reported with GERD. 53 point 5% of these (62/116) were female and 46.6% (54/116) were male. The commonest age group was 31-40 years with 45.5% (91/200) participants. 13/200 (6.5%) participants were smokers, of which only 15.9% were female. 41 point 3% (48/116) of the GERD +ve participants were having blood group O +ve 7.8% (9/116) of GERD participants reported symptoms which affected their daily life activity. Conclusion: This study revealed a prevalence of GERD symptoms among 58% of school teachers. 7 point 8% of GERD participants reported symptoms which affected their daily life activities. These data indicate a need for a comprehensive approach to managing the GERD and related diseases and a more intensified level of awareness about GERD symptoms and its complications. In addition, a health care and preventive measure may be implemented to tackle the problem among school teachers.

C10H13ClN2O4, orthorhombic, Pnma, a = 14.903(2) Å, b = 9.1004(15) Å, c = 8.7560(14) Å, V = 1187.5(3) Å3, Z = 4, Rint = 0.036, R gt(F) = 0.0284, wRref (F2 ) = 0.0795, T = 296 K.

Uncertainty in rainfall forecasts affects the level of quality and assurance for decisions made to manage water resource-based systems. However, eliminating uncertainty in a complete manner could be difficult, decision-makers thus are challenged to make decisions in the light of uncertainty. This study provides statistical models as an approach to cope with uncertainty, including: a) a statistical method relying on a Gaussian mixture (GM) model to assist in better characterize uncertainty in climate model projections and evaluate their performance in matching observations; b) a stochastic model that incorporates the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle to narrow uncertainty in seasonal rainfall forecasts; and c) a statistical approach to determine to what extent drought events forecasted using ENSO information could be utilized in the water resources decision-making process. This study also investigates the relationship between calibration and lead time on the ability to narrow the interannual uncertainty of forecasts and the associated usefulness for decision making. These objectives are demonstrated for the northwest region of Costa Rica as a case study of a developing country in Central America. This region of Costa Rica is under an increasing risk of future water shortages due to climate change, increased demand, and high variability in the bimodal cycle of seasonal rainfall. First, the GM model is shown to be a suitable approach to compare and characterize long-term projections of climate models. The GM representation of seasonal cycles is then employed to construct detailed comparison tests for climate models with respect to observed rainfall data. Three verification metrics demonstrate that an acceptable degree of predictability can be obtained by incorporating ENSO information in reducing error and interannual variability in the forecast of seasonal rainfall. The predictability of multicategory rainfall forecasts in the late portion of the wet season surpasses that in the early portion of the wet season. Later, the value of drought forecast information for coping with uncertainty in making decisions on water management is determined by quantifying the reduction in expected losses relative to a perfect forecast. Both the discrimination ability and the relative economic value of drought-event forecasts are improved by the proposed forecast method, especially after calibration. Positive relative economic value is found only for a range of scenarios of the cost-loss ratio, which indicates that the proposed forecast could be used for specific cases. Otherwise, taking actions (no-actions) is preferred as the cost-loss ratio approaches zero (one). Overall, the approach of incorporating ENSO information into seasonal rainfall forecasts would provide useful value to the decision-making process - in particular at lead times of one year ahead.

Research has shown that construction projects in Saudi Arabia have exhibited poor performance for the past three decades. The government's construction in Saudi Arabia relies on the low bid delivery method and prequalified contractors using a contractors' classification system (CCS) run by the Ministry of Municipal and Rural Affairs (MOMRA). However, the current CCS is perceived to not accurately represent contractors' capabilities and performance and MOMRA aims to develop the current CCS. In this paper, the current CCS will be analysed as a case study through conducting interviews and reviewing internal reports. Furthermore, other worldwide CCSs will be analysed through a literature search in order to compare them with the Saudi CCS. Comparison results show that other worldwide CCS systems are up-to-date, simpler, and more transparent in comparison to the Saudi CCS. However, it is found that all the systems are disconnected from contractors' performances as they do not have a continuous and accurate method of measuring the actual performance of classified contractors.