Abdullah AL-Malaise AL-Ghamdi

Comparative Study from Several Business Cases and Methodologies for ICT Project Evaluation

Achieving high competitive advantage through Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has never been easy without proper management and appropriate utilization of ICT resources. Therefore, the statistics suggested that ICT project failures are very common in the organization due to several reasons; it fails to deliver the required objectives of investment, inaccurate budget planning, lack of risk management plan and time overrun are some basic reasons for an ICT project’s failure. To overcome these issues, recently ICT decision makers are emphasizing more on ICT project’s evaluation rather than investment. The practitioner broadly categorized the evaluation techniques in post and pre evaluation methods, which is further divided into measuring the return from financial and non-financial perspectives. The main purpose of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis on ICT investment’s evaluation, their categories based on pre and post evaluation. Thus, the paper offers an extensive literature review that can help ICT decision makers and organizations to better select the evaluation techniques available, where integration of multiple techniques can further improve this process

Developing a framework and algorithm for scalability to evaluate the performance and throughput of CRM systems

AbstractScalability in hardware and/or software is an important factor for enhancing the performance of running processes as well as the throughput of the system of business organizations. This paper explores the need for scalability and issues related to extending the resources in order to ensure an improved and scaled-up Customer Relationship Management (CRM) architecture. The main contribution discussed in this paper is the proposal of a conceptual framework for measuring the process performance and throughput of the system beyond the selection of the type of scalability. Furthermore, this paper concerns the CRM system, as customer requests, their online transactions, and responses need a fast and efficient system. Taking into consideration all these factors, ultimately this paper proposed a customer-friendly framework for measuring the process performance and throughput of the system. Finally, the proposed framework’s steps are shown in an algorithm calculating process performance and throughput of th...

Enterprise application integration as a middleware: Modification in data & process layer

Currently, enterprises are running with many applications simultaneously to accomplish their business processes more appropriately and precisely. The real challenge for the enterprises is to build strong relation between those applications in terms of technical, development and data integration. Enterprise application integration (EAI) solutions are there to facilitate enterprises as an intermediary supervisor. The main purpose of EAI is to work as a middleware for supporting and integrating all business processes; internal and external. Supply chain management, customer relationship management, billing and finance are some major applications which required to be integrated especially with respect to databases. This paper discusses about the EAI, its characteristics, distribution layers, and formation. In addition, we discussed that incorporation of data mining is much helpful and positive addition in original architecture of EAI. Although data mining implementation with EAI is just to support enterprise information and processes, but it can work with almost each applications database(s) prior or after integration. Therefore an enhanced framework presented for EAI which highlights the data mining inclusion in original EAI architecture.

A Formal Model for Space Based Ubiquitous Computing

Ubiquitous Computing asserts that technology will soon be pervasive in our lives. But how will that technology be organized and made available to us as we roam through the many spaces of our daily lives? How will we see and use that which we have a right to, and more importantly, how will a lack of access rights be enforced? These are questions that have been raised following previous research projects. They become more significant as the concept of intelligent environments scales-up beyond the boundaries of four walls. In this paper we propose a formal model that will form a roadmap for some of our upcoming research. This paper is a hypothetical work that explores some questions and poses some answers - Influenced by experimentation and with a view to further investigation.

Assessing the effects of information and communication technologies on organizational development: business values perspectives

ABSTRACT Information and communication technology (ICT) projects for organizational development deal with market challenges, information handling, and the integration of multiple information systems (IS) in an organization. This research investigates how ICT projects (IS systems, etc.) affect the strategic, social, and human development in an organization. Previous studies have highlighted the advantages of ICT portfolio management techniques and return on investment approaches; the current research focused primarily on measuring business value on investment perspective. Therefore, based on the findings from the literature review, an integrated framework was proposed and validated using the case study in Saudi Arabia to evaluate the effects of ICT/IS projects from a managerial perspective. The framework consisted of a list of processes, criteria, and sub-criteria for different kinds of extracted features to measure the impact of ICT/IS projects. Our findings demonstrated that the effects of ICT projects are not limited to social and economic development, but are also categorized as strategic, managerial, informational, operational, transactional, organizational, infrastructure, and transformational development. It is hoped that the findings of the current study can inform ICT decision makers, experts, and researchers who have investigated and are doing research in this area.

Phenolics Isolated from Aframomum meleguta Enhance Proliferation and Ossification Markers in Bone Cells

Osteoporosis is a serious health problem characterized by decreased bone mineral density and deterioration of bone microarchitecture. Current antiosteoporotic agents exhibit a wide range of adverse effects; meanwhile, phytochemicals are effective and safer alternatives. In the current work, nine compounds belonging to hydroxyphenylalkane and diarylheptanoid groups were isolated from Aframomum meleguea seeds and identified as 6-gingerol (1), 6-paradol (2), 8-dehydrogingerdione (3), 8-gingerol (4), dihydro-6-paradol (5), dihydrogingerenone A (6), dihydrogingerenone C (7), 1,7-bis(3,4-dihydroxy-5-methoxyphenyl)heptane-3,5-diyl diacetate (8), and 1-(3,4-dihydroxy-5-methoxyphenyl)-7-(3,4-dihydroxyphenyl)heptane-3,5-diyl diacetate (9). The structures of isolated compounds were established by NMR and mass spectral data, in addition to referring to literature data. Exposure of MCF-7, MG-63, and SAOS-2 cells to subcytotoxic concentrations of the compounds under investigation resulted in accelerated proliferation. Among them, paradol was selected for further detailed biochemical analysis in SAOS-2 cells. DNA flowcytometric analysis of cell cycle distribution revealed that paradol did not induce any significant change in the proliferation index of SAOS-2 cells. Assessment of osteogenic gene expression revealed that paradol enhanced the expression of osteocyte and osteoblast-related genes and inhibited osteoclast and RUNX suppressor genes. Biochemically, paradol enhanced alkaline phosphatase activity and vitamin D content and decreased the osteoporotic marker acid phosphatase. In conclusion, paradol, which is a major constituents of A. melegueta seeds, exhibited potent proliferative and ossification characteristics in bone cells.

Construction of Educative Micro-Worlds to Build Students' Creativity in Terms of Their Own Self-Learning

In this paper, based on Seymour Papert’s learning theory, logo creator, we create a theory based on the knowledge of learning objects, which allows teachers and students a dynamic development of content and allows continuous assessment of the student. In this way, we use the cloud system and educational systems, which enables the development of learning objects as independent and modifiable elements from any location and makes it easy to integrate with other systems.

Rutin Isolated from Chrozophora tinctoria Enhances Bone Cell Proliferation and Ossification Markers

Osteoporosis is a chronic disease in which the skeleton loses a weighty proportion of its mineralized mass and mechanical pliability. Currently available antiosteoporotic agents suffer adverse effects that include elevated risk of thrombosis and cancer. Phytochemicals may constitute a safer and effective option. In the current work, six flavonoids were obtained from Chrozophora tinctoria and identified as amentoflavone (1), apigenin-7-O-β-d-glucopyranoside (2), apigenin-7-O-6′′-E-p-coumaroyl-β-d-glucopyranoside (3), acacetin-7-O-β-d-[α-l-rhamnosyl(1→6)]3′′-E-p-coumaroyl glucopyranoside (4), apigenin-7-O-(6′′-Z-p-coumaroyl)-β-d-glucopyranoside (5), and rutin (6). An extensive review of the literature as well as NMR and mass spectral techniques was employed in order to elucidate the compound structures. Proliferation was enhanced in MCF7, MG-63, and SAOS-2 cells after exposure to subcytotoxic levels of the tested flavonoids. Rutin was chosen for subsequent studies in SAOS-2 cells. Rutin was not found to cause any alteration in the index of proliferation of these cells, when examining the cell cycle distribution by DNA flowcytometric analysis. Rutin was, however, found to increase osteocyte and osteoblast-related gene expression and lower the expression of RUNX suppressor and osteoclast genes. When examining the influence of rutin on vitamin D levels and the activity of alkaline phosphatase enzyme, it was found to enhance both, while decreasing acid phosphatase which is a marker of osteoporosis. Thus, rutin enhances proliferation and ossification markers in bone cells.

DiscoverView Saudi: A new point of view of Saudi Arabia

Few people know about real Saudi history and culture; this is because what most people know is based on clichés based on word of mouth. Anchoring in new ways of combining existing technologies such as GPS, the web services, the cloud hosted information, 3D modelling and the services offered by mobile devices, the proposed system offers to the user, located at anywhere in Saudi Arabia, the ability to acquire desired information about his/her surroundings on a mobile device. Thus, the users mobility and the mobile device location information can be obtained related to the city areas surrounding the user. As such, not only someone can visit Saudi Arabia, but also a global 360 degrees vision of the surroundings is possible related to the buildings, sightseeing and under constructions areas along with their history; in other words, providing a glance and insight into Saudi Arabias past, present and future.

Improving Surgery Operations by means of Cloud Systems and Distributed User Interfaces

Surgical interventions are usually performed in an operation room; however, access to the information by the medical team members during the intervention is limited. While in conversations with the medical staff, we observed that they attach significant importance to the improvement of the information and communication direct access by queries during the process in real time. It is due to the fact that the procedure is rather slow and there is lack of interaction with the systems in the operation room. These systems can be integrated on the Cloud adding new functionalities to the existing systems the medical expedients are processed. Therefore, such a communication system needs to be built upon the information and interaction access specifically designed and developed to aid the medical specialists.