Mohammad Al-Ramahi

Evaluating Google queries based on language preferences

This paper evaluates the assumption that users expect search engines to retrieve the same results for queries regardless of the language or the location of the originator. The dependency of the Google search engine on the language and location from which the query is submitted has been evaluated. The most popular queries in Arabic language were selected and translated into English for comparison using the Google translator. When studying keyword traffic on both Google search based keyword tool and Google Insights for Search, results showed that 67% of the Arab Internet users prefer to use English queries instead of their Arabic counterpart. When studying Google responses to some popular queries we have found that Google ranking algorithm depends on the language of the query more than on the keyword popularity. Although results justify search engines’ favouritism of giving documents in English priority over those of other languages, nonetheless, future search engine indexers should separate the document language from its content in a structure that makes the language a pluggable attribute for those indexed documents.

The impact of using pair programming: a case study

Several studies tried to evaluate the impact of using pair programming in computer educational courses or in actual programming projects in the industry. We studied the effect of pair programming practice on the performance of students who do not like and face problems with understanding programming courses through conducting a case study of several programming tasks in third-level practical programming course using individual and pair programming options. We tried to evaluate using pairs of students where one has very good programming skills unlike the other pair who suffers problems in programming. We also conducted a comparison study with papers in the area of pair programming to compare the different approaches that are used in evaluating pair programming practices. In computer programming education, pair programming can be used as part of the education, helping students learn from each other especially those who do not like and face obstacles in learning programming.

Discovering Design Principles for Health Behavioral Change Support Systems: A Text Mining Approach

Behavioral Change Support Systems (BCSSs) aim to change users’ behavior and lifestyle. These systems have been gaining popularity with the proliferation of wearable devices and recent advances in mobile technologies. In this article, we extend the existing literature by discovering design principles for health BCSSs based on a systematic analysis of users’ feedback. Using mobile diabetes applications as an example of Health BCSSs, we use topic modeling to discover design principles from online user reviews. We demonstrate the importance of the design principles through analyzing their existence in users’ complaints. Overall, the results highlight the necessity of going beyond the techno-centric approach used in current practice and incorporating the social and organizational features into persuasive systems design, as well as integrating with medical devices and other systems in their usage context.