Stenden University Qatar

Interactions between biochar, soil, microbes, and plant roots may occur within a short period of time after application to the soil. The extent, rates, and implications of these interactions, however, are far from understood. This review describes the properties of biochars and suggests possible reactions that may occur after the addition of biochars to soil. These include dissolution–precipitation, adsorption–desorption, acid–base, and redox reactions. Attention is given to reactions occurring within pores, and to interactions with roots, microorganisms, and soil fauna. Examination of biochars (from chicken litter, greenwaste, and paper mill sludges) weathered for 1 and 2 years in an Australian Ferrosol provides evidence for some of the mechanisms described in this review and offers an insight to reactions at a molecular scale. These interactions are biochar- and site-specific. Therefore, suitable experimental trials—combining biochar types and different pedoclimatic conditions—are needed to determine the extent to which these reactions influence the potential of biochar as a soil amendment and tool for carbon sequestration.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Relapse is common in patients with anorexia nervosa. The aim of this study is to systematically review the existing literature on relapse in anorexia nervosa. RECENT FINDINGS: A systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed, PsychInfo and CINAHL published up to April 2018. Of the 1527 studies screened, 16 studies were included in the present review. SUMMARY: This analysis shows that, of the patients included in this review, 31% relapsed after treatment. The highest risk of relapse is during the first year after discharge and this risk continues for up to 2 years. An overview was made of all factors significantly associated with a higher risk of relapse, resulting in the following four clusters: eating disorder variables, comorbidity symptoms, process treatment variables and demographic variables. Future research on relapse prevention is necessary to further unravel the mechanisms that might lead to relapse.

Research about online journalism has been dominated by a discourse of technological innovation.\nThe ‘‘success’’ of online journalism is often measured by the extent to which it utilizes\ntechnological assets like interactivity, multimedia and hypertext. This paper critically examines\nthe technologically oriented research about online journalism in the second decade of its\nexistence. The aim is twofold. First, to investigate to what degree online journalism, as it is\nportrayed in empirical research, utilizes new technology more than previously. Second, the paper\npoints to the limitations of technologically oriented research and suggests alternative research\napproaches that might be more effective in explaining why online journalism develops as it does.

This article tests the contribution that social capital theory, performance theory, and the procedural justice-based model can make towards explaining the trust of majority and minority group members in the police. The central research questions are: (1) do the same factors determine their levels of trust? and (2) are the effects parallel? To answer these questions, we carried out regression analyses on data collected from majority and minority group members living in Belgium (960 face-to-face interviews). The results show that, although the three theories offer explanatory elements for members of both majority and minority groups, the explanation of their trust in the police is not identical. Implications for research and theorization are discussed.

Purpose Service firms constantly look for ways to differentiate their offering. Recently, personal values have emerged as a way to understand how customers fulfill deeper needs when consuming a service. This paper aims to examine how personal values operate in the evaluation of higher education services. Like other services, marketing has become essential to higher education as universities compete aggressively for students and differentiate their service offerings. Although attribute‐based measures such as SERVQUAL provide useful information to service providers, personal values may offer a deeper understanding of how customers judge the quality and desirability of an educational institution's services. This study seeks to determine whether personal values in higher education affect perceptions of overall value, satisfaction, and behavioral outcomes including loyalty and intention to recommend. Design/methodology/approach A survey measured student personal values, service quality, satisfaction, and behavioral outcomes in the USA – the largest exporter of higher educational service, and India – the largest net importer. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, path analysis, and t ‐tests. Findings The results describe the impact of personal values on satisfaction and behavioral outcomes, while showing differences between India and the USA. Research limitations/implications The paper provides implications for applying the personal values concept to the marketing of a university. It also serves as a basis for future research on the impact of personal values in other service sectors. Originality/value The study fills an important gap in the literature by showing that personal values are an important dimension in services. Service firms need to move beyond attributes and measure personal values, as these values do impact customer satisfaction and loyalty.

This paper presents a holistic model for multilingualism in education (Duarte, 2017), which combines different approaches to teaching and knowledge and places them in a continuum—from the acknowledgement of different languages to their actual use as a language of instruction. The model addresses attitudes, knowledge, and skills related to the multilingualism of both teachers and students (Herzog-Punzenberger, Le Pichon-Vorstman, & Siarova, 2017) and is suitable for different school types and students (i.e., for both minority and migrant students). The model is tested in the northern Netherlands in a multilingual education project that combines different approaches to multilingual education for both migrant and minority learners. Through design-based interventions, teachers and researchers collaboratively develop multilingual activities in a bottom-up approach (i.e., based on questions from the schools involved). Some preliminary results from the project are presented, and the model’s contribution to research on multilingual education is discussed.

Findings in recent research suggest that online journalism is much less innovative than many researchers and scholars predicted a decade ago. Research into online journalism has, however, been biased towards a focus on online news journalism, thereby neglecting the magnitude of new styles and genres that are currently emerging online. In this paper the findings of a longitudinal ethnographic case study of the development of a section for feature journalism in the Norwegian online newspaper dagbladet.no is presented. The study is framed by an understanding of innovation as a process where organizational structures and individual agency interact. The findings suggest that individual action has been downplayed in previous research as a determinant for processes of innovation in online newsrooms, and that a substantive grounded theory of innovation in online newspapers is comprised of five factors: newsroom autonomy, newsroom work culture, the role of management, the relevance of new technology and innovative individuals.

The COVID-19 virus and the measures taken to prevent its spread have had enormous impact on society, and specifically on people’s leisure behaviour in the Netherlands. The Dutch government implemented a so-called “intelligent lockdown” mid-March 2020. This constituted a partial closing of the economy, particularly those locations and businesses where social distancing could not be practiced. By July of 2020, many restrictions had already been lifted, but the concept of the “1.5 meter society” was retained, thus still prohibiting large-scale gatherings such as festivals, and severely limiting the capacity of leisure venues. During the lockdown period, people spent more leisure time at home and with their family. This caused a spike in the popularity of social media-related leisure, gaming, television (especially streaming services), but also a revaluing of more “traditional” forms of leisure. Since many leisure facilities were closed, self-organized outdoor leisure activities such as hiking, running, and cycling became even more popular. The psychological impact included heightened stress, anxiety, and confusion. The economic impact is expected to be significant, but the leisure sector is showing its resilience by figuring out new ways of continuing operations.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine the actions owner‐managers of small businesses undertake in managing working capital. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted an exploratory research design. The point of saturation was achieved after ten owner‐managers were interviewed. Data were analyzed using content analysis technique with the aid of NVivo software. Verbatim texts were used to explain the emergent themes. Findings The findings indicate that in the absence of systems, structures and procedures, small business owner‐managers intuitively plan, monitor and control their working capital. The activities undertaken include; reliance on memory and oral agreements, informal planning, assuming inventory limits, unconventional record keeping, cash flow based information management and giving credit to close associates. Research limitations/implications A more detailed investigation of the steps in the action sequence ma y advance our understanding of the process. Future studies need to test the effect of personal characteristics on working capital management process. Practical implications Owner‐managers of small businesses do not require the same degree of sophistication employed in planning, monitoring and controlling working capital. They require soft skills. Therefore, academicians, practitioners and policy makers need to emphasize knowledge management and cash accounting. Originality/value This study examines the process perspective of working capital management, an aspect that has not been adequately highlighted in previous studies.

Abstract The purpose of this study is to analyse how tourists’ perceptions of a destination’s tourism product influences memorable tourism experiences and how gender differences influence tourists’ perceptions of tourism product. To achieve these objectives, Uganda, one of the developing economies in East Africa, was chosen. The five A’s of tourism product was used as a basis for the questionnaire construction and data was analysed. Explanatory research design within the framework of confirmatory factor analysis - a structural equation modelling technique was adopted using the AMOS 18 program. A sample of 501 respondents consisting of tourists departing Uganda through Entebbe International Airport was used. Results showed that both the measurement and structural models exhibited better model fit indices. Overall, tourists’ perceptions of the retained four dimensions of tourism product (Attractions, ancillary services, amenities and accommodation) had a positive effect on memorable travel experience. Additionally, the independent T-test for gender and tourists’ perceptions of Uganda’s tourism product showed that on average, females had a positive evaluation of Uganda tourism product compared to their male counterparts. However, the observed difference was not significant. It is recommended that destination management organisations pay attention to infrastructure, particularly transport that links potential and actual tourists to key tourism attractions. This is likely to enhance positive perceptions and was found to positively influence memorable travel experience. Other implications for destination branding are discussed.

In recent years applications like CoveritLive have diffused with great speed throughout online newsrooms. Such technologies create an interface where audience participation and journalistic reporting potentially merge into a text-production system marked by a high degree of immediacy and interactivity. This paper investigates the consequences of such practices for the professional ideology of journalism. What norms and ideals do journalists who initiate and partake in such practices adhere to? To what degree does their practice conflict with traditional ideals of journalistic reporting? The paper analyses the “live” coverage of football matches in the two most popular Norwegian online newspapers, VG Nett and dagbladet.no. The findings suggest that the merger of audience participation and immediacy creates conflicts of ideals for the journalists involved, and that ideals of subjectivity and social cohesion are promoted by such practices of journalism.

An increasing number of Internet users are dealing with cybercrime victimization. In order to find out whether victims adequately recover from cybercrime incidents, it is important to gain insight into its effects and impact on users. However, as it stands now, there is not much literature on the impact of cybercrime. We address this gap by qualitatively examining the impact of two types of cybercrime, namely phishing and malware attacks targeting online banking customers. We used the coping approach as a framework to study how victims deal with the negative events they have experienced. In order to study the impact of cybercrime and how victims cope with it, 30 cybercrime victims were interviewed. We observed that, next to financial damage, victims described different forms of psychological and emotional effects. Victims also reported various kinds of secondary impacts, such as time loss and not being treated properly when handling the incident. In addition, the interview data provided insight into cognitive and behavioral change, which potentially offers opportunities for cybercrime prevention. Our study demonstrates that the level of impact varies among cybercrime victims, ranging from little or no impact to severe impact. In addition, while some victims were only affected for a few days, some were still feeling the effects. The effects and impact of these fraudulent schemes on victims should therefore not be underestimated. We conclude that the coping approach provides a useful framework to study the effects and impact of cybercrime victimization and how victims recover from it. The results of our study provide a steppingstone for future studies on this topic.

Cholinergic basal forebrain neurons are the major source of cortical cholinergic innervation. The number of these neurons is regulated by the availability of nerve growth factor (NGF) during development while in adulthood their cholinergic activity is modulated by NGF. In previous studies we have shown that cholinergic immunolesions of basal forebrain neurons increase local immediate early gene expression and NGF synthesis in the regions of degeneration. In this study we identify the cellular source of c-Jun and NGF expression using dual immunolabeling of c-Jun and NGF in combination with neuronal and glial markers. We demonstrate that both c-Jun and NGF are exclusively expressed in reactive astrocytes but not in microglia or in GABAergic basal forebrain neurons. These observations support the hypothesis that reactive astrocytes synthesize neurotrophic substances in vivo in response to neuronal degeneration in the basal forebrain.

Although online journalism is still dominated by breaking news coverage, new genres are emerging that differentiate it more and more from old media journalism. This article explores the emergence of feature journalism in online newspapers. Through comparative qualitative text analysis of feature journalism in the US online newspaper palmbeachpost.com and the Norwegian online newspaper dagbladet.no, two widely different approaches to the production of feature journalism on the Web are uncovered and a critical perspective on the remediation of journalistic genres in online newspapers is elaborated. The analysis shows that both these approaches display a clash between discourses of traditional feature journalism and discourses of online communication. It further reveals that genre development in online journalism is a complex process marked by contradictions and inconsistencies and that online newsrooms are struggling to find solutions on how to differentiate online journalism from old media journalism.

Sustainability has clearly currently become an important area of focus in business management and on the political agenda. The hospitality industry is not considered to be one of the most sustainability-aware sectors. In this study, a hotel's restaurant was studied to see the effect of a change process toward sustainability awareness. Interesting findings throughout the process were generated. These related to definition issues (including ecological and social aspects), such as prices not increasing because of sustainability implementation, the importance of supplier selection, and the need for proper communication with customers about the change process for achieving sustainability. Overall the positive outcomes of the change process (“sweet grapes”) outweighed the negative effects (“sour grapes”). One recommendation from this research is to include customers and suppliers explicitly in further related research.

In order to test the hypothesis that poor survival of dopaminergic neurones in nigral transplants may be due, at least in part, to acute toxic changes in the host striatum within the first hour after injury, we experimentally evaluated the consequences of imposing a brief delay (20 min, 1 or 3 h) between positioning the injection cannula and extruding the graft tissue. A delay of as little as 1 h resulted in a three-fold increase in survival of dopamine neurones in the grafts and a more rapid abolition of amphetamine-induced rotational asymmetry in the host animals. These results suggest that acute but rapidly resolving changes in the host striatal environment induced by the implantation procedure itself can have a significantly deleterious effect on the survival of embryonic nigral grafts.

This paper discusses how primary school students, who are writing together in the context of inquiry learning, explicitly orient to knowing of oneself and others within the peer group. Using Conversation Analysis, we disclose the conversational functions of assertions holding ‘I know’, ‘you know’ and ‘we know’. First, students position themselves as knowledgeable, to (i) express a preannouncement of a proposal, (ii) respond to a request for information and (iii) reinforce an assertion with use of an evidential. Second, students claim equal epistemic access, as a response to an action that conveys epistemic authority of a peer. Third, students indicate shared knowledge with other participants, to (i) pursue agreement, (ii) check the epistemic status of a co-participant, (iii) reject a proposal for grounds of relevance and (iv) mark shared, newfound knowledge. The different practices are discussed in terms of epistemics in conversation and dialogic writing.

ABSTRACT: Qatar Government is taking active role in promoting its banking sector and International Islamic Bank (IIB) has grown by leaps and bounds since the past decade. Risk Management is becoming a very important aspect in banking industry today and there was a felt need to study its relevance in the context of business performance of IIB. So, this research has primarily focused on the establishment of a link between the various dimensions of risk management with the business performance of IIB. While risk management had seven distinct dimensions, business performance was measured in terms of financial and non-financial performance of the IIB. Based on the contemporary research in risk management, 14 hypotheses were built to link the dimensions of risk management with business performance. The research was undertaken as an empirical study with grounded theory approach. Multiple regression analysis was the method used for establishment of causal relationships between the variables of research interest. The research has developed the mathematical relationships between the research variables of interest. The hypothesis testing has indicated that risk assessment analysis, risk management practices, risk identification, and credit risk assessment are the specific dimensions which influence the business performance. Based on the hypotheses testing results implications are drawn and suggestions are made to the strategic managers of IIB to enhance their business performance.

This research aims to examine brand equity of four coffee shops in Surabaya, they are Excelso, DOME, Starbucks dan Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Brand equity is measured based on variables developed by Aaker, namely brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality and brand loyalty. The result shows that Starbucks achieves the highest top of mind of brand awareness, has the best brand association in consumers’ image, and has the strongest brand loyalty; while Excelso has the best perceived quality. Abstract in Bahasa Indonesia : Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengukur ekuitas merek empat coffee shops di Surabaya, yaitu Excelso, DOME, Starbucks dan Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Ekuitas merek diukur berdasarkan 4 variabel dari Aaker yaitu kesadaran merek, asosiasi merek, kesan kualitas dan loyalitas merek. Hasil penelitian terungkap bahwa Starbucks merupakan coffee shop yang kesadaran mereknya paling banyak diingat oleh responden, diasosiasikan paling positif dan loyalitas mereknya paling tinggi. Sedangkan Excelso merupakan coffee shop dengan kesan kualitas paling baik. Kata kunci: kesadaran merek, asosiasi merek, kesan kualitas, loyalitas merek, coffee shop

Purpose This research is on the study of the variables which have bearing on behavioural aspects of food wastage in Qatar. As about 30% of food is being wasted in Qatar, despite the fact that 90% of food consumption is imported, the problem has now drawn national importance. Design/methodology/approach This research adopts positivist paradigm, and Ajzen's theory of planned behaviour (TPB) provides the theoretical foundation. Questionnaire survey has been used to collect data from the consumers in Qatar ( n = 212), based on convenience sampling, and the tool used for analysis is structural equation modelling (SEM) using partial least square method (PLSM). Findings Out of the five hypotheses being tested, four have been supported, which have led to the drawing of the implications and suggestions to reduce or even avoid food wastage. The study has revealed that both attitude and perceived behavioural control act as significant predictors of intention to avoid food wastage, which in turn is the predictor of food wastage behaviour. In addition, it is also revealed that perceive behavioural control is a direct predictor of food wastage behaviour. Research limitations/implications More research may be required to further investigate why Qatari consumers have not been influenced by subjective norms on their intention to avoid food wastage. Practical implications The suggestions have been drawn to the concerned authorities in Qatar to consider as measures of food waste minimization. Social implications Theoretically, the research provides an empirical proof to Ajzen's TPB in the context of food wastage management. Originality/value An attempt has been made to study the food wastage behaviour of the residents of Qatar so that the antecedents of food wastage behaviour can be identified and remedial actions may be taken to reduce food wastage.