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Airport-driven urban developments: Key drivers to the Airport City in Saudi ArabiaTransportation infrastructure has played a major role in shaping our cities today. Over the last centuries, it was observed that urban form has been widely affected by seaports, railways, highways, and airports. Airports in specific, were seen as a transport station and were located in the peripheries of cities. Today, airports became a major catalyzer for urban development and urban growth. The paradigm has shifted, and the “Airport City” model has emerged and weaved its way around the urban tissue. This research offers an inclusive analysis to the Airport city potential development in the Saudi Arabian context. The goal of this research is to contribute to finding the key drivers of such development and its relevance to the entire territory. The research objectives are finding the main key drivers based on international experiences and correlating them to the Saudi setting and developing recommendations for future applications. The research methodology is conducted using mixed research methods, where quantitative research was carried out using questionnaire-based survey and qualitative research was performed using interviews from experts in the aviation field and managing bodies directly responsible for developing the airport and its urban area in Saudi Arabia.
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The impact of IPO listing on Company Financial Performance: Evidence from Saudi ArabiaThis study critically examines the impact of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) in the transformation of private companies into public entities within Saudi Arabia's dynamic economic framework. IPO listing is a way to gain more capital for developing private companies to meet capital requirements for growth. Saudi Arabia has an increasing trend of IPOs as part of Vision 2030, however, there is not conclusive evidence about the impact of IPOs on financial performance of newly listed companies. By employing data from 49 non- financial companies that went public during 2017-2021, this study tries to revisit the impact of IPO using Panel OLS based on the Hausman test. The study finds that IPO positively impacts Total Assets (TA) and Profit Margin (PM) of the companies while negatively impacts Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) , Return on Assets (ROA), Asset turnover (ATO) and Return on Equity (ROE). These findings are true for non-financial companies. This study may be helpful in guiding the investors before taking any decision to buy stocks in primary stock market based on their investment strategies and outcomes. The positive impact on Total Assets may be a reason to lower ROA, ROE and EBITDA. The findings also indicate that companies first focus on assets building and then move to ear profits. The same study may be employed in financial sector or other sectors of the stock exchanges
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Augmentation of Building Integrated Photovoltaic System Technology in Building Architectural DesignIn 2020, nearly all of Saudi Arabia’s electricity generation is fueled by natural gas (61%) and crude oil (39%). In addition, Saudi Arabia is witnessing an increase in energy consumption, especially in the industry sector consumes 47% of the primary energy while the building sector consumes 29% of the primary energy, representing about 75% of the country’s electricity production. As part of Saudi Ara- bia’s vision 2030, the Saudi government plans to diversify fuels to increase crude oil exports and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. In Saudi Arabia, the solar irradiance averages 5.2 kWh/m2/day, photovoltaic (PV) technology is being embraced to achieve green growth and increase its power generation. As a result of the technology’s close proximity to the point of consumption, it ensures a continuous supply of energy while reducing the country’s transmission and distribution losses. A key parameter affecting the performance of PV panels in a photovoltaic system is the solar radiation incident on the panel. The tilt and azimuth angles of PV modules are two important factors in designing the PV system for the best performance. In contrast to add-on Photovoltaics, PV, Building-integrated PV (BIPV) refers to the installation of PV arrays that are integrated into building envelopes and can generate electricity on their own. Saudi Arabia with its average daily solar radiation is well-positioned to make use of this BIPV technology to fulfill its goal of achieving green growth and expanding electric power generation. In addition, by producing power close to the point of use, the technology will ensure the continuous supply of energy. Additionally, the technology will reduce the country’s current 23% transmission and distri- bution losses by producing electricity at the point of use. To investigate this possibility, the Admission and Registration building (AR) at Effat University in Jeddah is used as a case study to understand how the country can meet some of its electricity demand through the grid-tied BIPV. This study starts by uti- lizing Excel software to calculate the azimuth angle for the best adjustment of solar modules. A detailed design, simulation, economic analysis, and the save emission of CO2 of a grid-tied BIPV system are conducted for different scenarios of the building using the PVsyst software package. The study com- pares the solar system’s performance for mono-crystalline, poly-crystalline, and thin-film photovoltaic and BIPV modules. The simulation showed the optimal design in terms of the significant amount of en- ergy that can be generated and how much it covers the estimated demand of the AR building. Moreover, based on the current electricity tariff of KSA, the amount of savings per year is also investigated.
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Evaluating the Efficiency of the Adopted Strategies Addressing Informal settlements in Saudi cities: The Case of Makkah Al-MukaramahInformal settlement areas are a phenomenon that spreads in all countries of the world, and popular attempts reflect popular trends with the aim of obtaining housing. Major cities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia suffer from the spread of this phenomenon in a large way, which affects the urban development process and the research aims. In general, to evaluate urban policies and determine their effectiveness and suitability for dealing with degraded informal settlements in order to extract the best of these policies to deal with the spread of informal settlements in Saudi cities. This is done by studying the concepts and characteristics of informal settlement areas and their role in providing housing for the residents and the problems they suffer from, with a focus on studying the informal settlement areas in the city of Makkah Al-Mukarramah in terms of their size, the reasons for their emergence analyzing their current situation, and then analyzing the opinion of experts, real estate developers and residents through a set of interviews, questionnaires and informal settlements site data in the city of Makkah Al-Mukarramah. This is done to determine the most important criteria that can be focused on during the policy of upgrading the urban and architectural environment of the region. In addition, studying the social and economic aspects of the residents in order to improve the reality of these areas without resorting to comprehensive removal operations, which have always been the adopted approach in dealing with these areas, and then drawing general results and presenting the proposed recommendations.
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A Framework to Identify the Appropriate Location of Bus Stops: The Case of Jeddah CityJeddah, Saudi Arabia has a city-wide traffic congestion problem, largely as a result of the 1947 oil boom (Freitag, 2020). Up to 25% of Saudi Arabia’s greenhouse gas emissions are produced by cars (Climate Transparency, 2022). This highlights the need for sustainable transportation solutions. The objective of this research is to develop a framework for strategically placing bus stops, crucial entry points to any bus service (Transportation Research Board, 2020). This aim of the framework is to aid urban officials in optimizing bus stop locations. To do this, principles were extracted from the literature. Then, quantitative data was collected from the Jeddah public and urban experts to assign relative weights to the principles based on Jeddah's context. The result was a checklist of principles for urban officials to follow for optimizing bus stop allocation for efficiency and sustainability.
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Design and Development of a Hybrid Active/Passive Cooling System Using a WindcatcherGlobally, most building energy consumption is associated with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems (HVAC). Building energy consumption increased from 115 EJ in 2010 to nearly 135 EJ in 2021, accounting for 30% of global final energy consumption. In 2021, electricity will account for approximately 35% of building energy use, up from 30% in 2010. Space cooling, in particular, saw the greatest increase in demand across all building end uses in 2021, increasing by more than 6.5% over 2020. This study aims to set design guidelines to reduce energy consumption in building sector by proposing a hybrid active/passive cooling smart system. This can reduce energy consumed by the electricity grid by achieving natural ventilation through wind catchers. The later is a historical architectural element used in buildings to provide cross ventilation and passive cooling. The architectural modeling of the proposed system’s design is conducted using Autodesk Revit. The smart controlling system is implemented with Fuzzy logic in MATLAB Simulink. Moreover, the accuracy of the system is improved by a PID tuning based on Backpropagation Neural Network. The results confirmed the effectiveness of the methodology used.
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Ownership Structure, Capital Structure And Firm Performance In The GCC RegionThis paper aims to investigate the relationship between ownership structure, capital structure and firm performance of manufacturing companies listed in the GCC stock exchanges from 2013- 2022. The GCC countries include Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The firm performance was measured by using Return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE). The data used in this study is panel data which was extracted from Bloomberg terminal. The capital structure is represented by debt-to-equity ratio whereas the ownership structure is represented by managerial ownership and institutional ownership. The control variables used in this study are liquidity, firm size and economic growth. After the data had been collected and analyzed, the results were computed, analyzed and presented using panel data analysis, descriptive statistics and correlation analysis methods such as random effect model for ROA and fixed effect model for ROE was carried out. The study concludes that capital structure has a negative impact on ROA and ROE. Managerial ownership has positive relation with ROA but a negative relation with ROE. Institutional ownership has negative relationship with both ROA and ROE.
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Investigating the arabic dubbing strategies of Songs ( Disney’s) Encanto 2021This research explores the strategies used in dubbing Disney’s Encanto cartoons into Arabic, explicitly focusing on using EVA and MSA in the dubbed songs. The study seeks to answer three research questions: (1) To what extent did the dubber omit, add, or change information from the SL into TL to appeal to the target audience? (2) What is the effect of dubbed songs in EVA? (3) How do Arabic-speaking audiences perceive the use of cultural and linguistic references in dubbed songs and films, and how does this impact their enjoyment and understanding of the media? By using the descriptive method, the study identifies problematic issues faced during the dubbing process and analyze the translation procedures used in translating culture-bound expressions in EVA following Newmark's (1988) theory. Additionally, the study will use questionnaire to collect data from the Millennial Generation and Generation Z, consisting of 20 questions with various categories to determine their preferences in dubbing strategies. The study's primary purpose is to investigate audience preferences for Arabic language and the adaptation of the original text to local language and cultural norms. Furthermore, the study will shed light on the impact of dubbed songs in vernacular Arabic on the audience's perception and enjoyment of the media and provide insights into how cultural and linguistic references in dubbed songs and films influence audience understanding. This research explores the impact of using MSA and EVA in dubbed songs. It compares these two Arabic varieties' linguistic features, cultural references, and audience reception. By examining the differences, this study aims to deepen our understanding of how language choice influences audience engagement and how dialects reflect cultural nuances.
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Culture-related Challenges in Translating Nawal El Saadawi’s Two Women in OneThe importance of culture in translation is significant, where culture provides a language with its value and enriches the translated context. This study aims to identify the translation challenges faced by the translator in translating culture-bound expressions taken from the novel Two Women in One from Arabic into English. This thesis investigates the strategies the Sudanese translator, Osman Alnusairi, applies to translate the culture-specific items, assuring that the novel’s intended meaning and cultural flavor are preserved. This study employs a qualitative methodology and provides a detailed analysis of the translated cultural expressions from Arabic into English to identify cultural-related challenges faced based on Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/2000)of translating culture-specific concepts and the procedures of Newmark (1988). The findings of this thesis revealed that the translator faced barriers related to cultural expressions in translating the novel. Therefore, the translator applied some of the suggested procedures of Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/2000), and Newmark (1988) to deal with these cultural expressions. This study concludes that culture and translation are inseparable, and that culture plays a considerable role in linguistics, affecting both the source text ST and target text TT. Keywords— cultural translation, culture-related challenges, culture-specific items, translation strategies.
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Culture-related Challenges in Translating Nawal El Saadawi’s Two Women in OneThe importance of culture in translation is significant, where culture provides a language with its value and enriches the translated context. This study aims to identify the translation challenges faced by the translator in translating culture-bound expressions taken from the novel Two Women in One from Arabic into English. This thesis investigates the strategies the Sudanese translator, Osman Alnusairi, applies to translate the culture-specific items, assuring that the novel’s intended meaning and cultural flavor are preserved. This study employs a qualitative methodology and provides a detailed analysis of the translated cultural expressions from Arabic into English to identify cultural-related challenges faced based on Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/2000)of translating culture-specific concepts and the procedures of Newmark (1988). The findings of this thesis revealed that the translator faced barriers related to cultural expressions in translating the novel. Therefore, the translator applied some of the suggested procedures of Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/2000), and Newmark (1988) to deal with these cultural expressions. This study concludes that culture and translation are inseparable, and that culture plays a considerable role in linguistics, affecting both the source text ST and target text TT.
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A Study of the Translation Strategies Used in Subtitling Humor in Almaktab Saudi SeriesThis study delves into the complex process of translating humor in AVT. It aims to identify the challenges and obstacles subtitlers face when translating humor in Almaktab Saudi series from Arabic into English. Gottlieb's (2001) ten translation strategies in subtitling and Debra and Raphaelson-West (1989) categorization of humor serve as the theoretical frameworks for the study. The investigation discovered that while universal jokes can be easily transferred into different languages, linguistic and cultural jokes pose a challenge due to language and cultural differences. The analysis shows that the most frequent strategy used by Arab subtitlers is 'transfer' with a percentage of 59.2%. The study uncovers the factors that may have influenced the subtitle’s decisions and choices when translating humor. The study's findings also shed light on the factors that may have influenced the subtitler's decisions and choices. As a result, this study provides valuable insights into the intricacies of subtitling humor in AVT. The analysis also highlights the importance of cultural awareness and language proficiency and maintains they are crucial for the translators to consider when translating humor.
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Safe Haven and Hedge Properties of Gold: Implication for Risk ManagementIn accordance with the timing of fiscal and monetary stimulus measures to help the faltering economy, this study investigates the function of gold as a hedge or safe-haven asset during various COVID-19 pandemic crisis phases. Empirical analyses are carried on gold and major stock indices for a period spanning from March 1, 2012, to January 28, 2022. The methodology employs a multiple linear regression model. The results suggest that gold was a safe-haven asset for stock markets during the pandemic, which may have been due to investors increasing their investment in gold as a "flight to safety asset" during the crisis. Additionally, a large increase in hedging expenses. These results shed light on how gold has changed over time as a hedge and safe-haven asset, and they offer direction to policymakers, regulators, and the media
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The Role of ESG Responsible Investing to Attract Investments from GCC Sovereign Wealth Funds’Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors are at the forefront of global asset management. Due to the long-term financial returns and positive social effects of ESG responsible investing, they have been incorporated into the investment decision-making and risk management of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). This study examines the impact of ESG-responsible corporate investments on the investment scope of GCC sovereign wealth funds. Additionally, we investigate the various implications of ESG factors in garnering the investment of GCC SWFs, which has some bearing on the discussion of GCC SWFs' investment preferences. According to the study's findings, ESG-responsible investing is a significant factor in recruiting GCC SWF investments, particularly in terms of social and governance factors. The analysis reveals a positive correlation between ESG ratings and GCC SWF investments. Therefore, GCC SWF investment strategies progressively incorporate ESG factors. Incorporating environmental, social, and governance factors into investment strategies necessitates integrating ESG metrics and analysis into decision- making as part of an integrated approach, not as an add-on, and that there are significant value- creation opportunities in doing so. The connection between environmental, social, and governance factors and sovereign wealth fund investments should encourage managers to implement appropriate strategies to attract GCC SWF investments and accomplish coordinated development.
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Analyzing Issues in the Arabic Subtitling of English Political Texts: A Case Study of Adel Al Jubeir’s SpeechesThis is a case study that will examine political and media theories and procedures and how to apply them in the translation of Adel Al Jubeir's speeches. One of the important fields of translation is political translation. The sensitivity and importance of this field have made a huge impact on translation procedures and theories. Nowadays, the existence of world wide web made communication easier and accessible, and political materials are available at any time. This research will analyze the subtitles of the Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al Jubeir’s speeches. Then, this research will analyze the Arabic subtitling of these speeches by applying the theories mentioned by Schäffner and Bassnett in their book Political Discourse, Media and Translation (2010) and other theories written by other scholar in Adel Al Jubeir’s speeches. Moreover, the thesis will discuss the challenges and issues a translator may face while translating political texts and the procedures used to overcome these challenges. The subtitled videos are from different official news agencies' YouTube channels and from amateur translators’ channels. Furthermore, the thesis will examine the most common procedures to render the meaning and produce the same effect of the ST on the audience of the TL. Also, there will be a quantitative data collection which will analyze the feedback from a survey done on a focused group of translators and journalists regarding the mentioned issues. The findings of the research have shown variations between news agencies' subtitling and amateur subtitling including stylistic features such as addition, omission, paraphrasing…etc. These stylistic features affected the quality of the subtitling presented by both subtitlers. This thesis also has shown the opinion of the focus group who participated in a questionnaire to support the purpose of this research. Furthermore, this research paper would recommend further studies on subtitled political videos covering the technical issues faced by subtitlers. Also, I would recommend for an extensive questionnaire covering a wider range of subtitlers, translators and journalists as this study was applied only on a focus group of translators and journalists
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Measuring Community Acceptance and Evaluation of Smart Mobility Systems in Saudi Future CitiesNowadays, almost half of the world's inhabitants live in urban areas where information and mobile communication technologies are natural catalysts for innovations. This unprecedented urban growth of recent years required improved urban planning and management to make urban spaces more inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. Therefore, the idea of smart cities has emerged to cope with resources and limited spaces worldwide by highly advanced technology. Smart Cities can categorize the city by intensively empowering and utilizing the latest technology to integrate human systems with physical and digital techniques. It can creatively and innovatively provide a high quality of life by mastering multiple main six dimensions: mobility, economy, environment, people, living, and government. Additionally, Smart mobility is one of the core subjects of any smart city. It involves optimizing transport and communications to consolidate new sustainability standards, efficiency, safety, and air quality. Therefore, Smart cities require having Smart people be socially smart and sustainable. Thus, this research measures the perception of the Saudi community regarding smart mobility types and usage, While exploring smart cities and highlighting the main challenges of smart mobility and smart people dimensions in smart cities. The methodology followed in this research is both qualitative and quantitative methodological choices. The research comprehensively investigate the smart cities overall approach, to build an evaluation framework to measure the community acceptance of smart mobility systems in Saudi future smart cities. At the end of this research, the main learned lessons are presented to support Saudi cities' transforming process while raising the awareness to reach smart people.
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Euphemism in Medical Interpreting and its Impact on the Interpreting Output QualityThe field of medicine is widely renowned for its intricate and technical language, with medical interpreting being one of the most critical areas where precise and accurate interpreting is paramount. One of this study’s objectives is to examine the impact of interpreters’ adherence to the interpreters' code of ethics in selected Saudi hospitals. The research endeavor takes a quantitative approach to investigate the extent of adherence to the accuracy principle outlined by the interpreters’ code of ethics and the deployment of euphemisms by medical interpreters. It also aims to uncover the ramifications of using euphemisms on the intended message of the Source Language speaker. The study employed survey questionnaires to solicit responses, and based on the analysis, over 80% of the respondents lacked a professional license to practice medical interpreting in Saudi hospitals, while 60% affirmed that they were not knowledgeable of any interpreters' code of ethics. The findings pointed towards the cautious use of euphemisms by medical interpreters. However, the absence of professional medical interpreters raises significant concerns regarding adequate training and ability to conduct professional interpreting sessions, while the unawareness of the interpreters' code of ethics implied that current interpreting services in Saudi hospitals lack professional standards. The research successfully attested to the first hypothesis, confirming that the current interpreting services in Saudi hospitals fall short of professional criteria due to the interpreters' lack of professional training and unfamiliarity with the interpreters' code of ethics.
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Applying Nord’s Functionalist Model to the English Translation of the Fatwa on the Rules of Hijab for the Muslim Minority in the USthe context of functionalist approaches to translation, this thesis focuses on the functionalist theories, and the effectiveness of the functionalist translation approach in the practice of translating Islamic verdicts in Arabic fatwa, without prejudice to any of the Islamic laws. Four freelance translators were given a text of one fatwa about the rules of hijab to translate from Arabic into English without a translation brief. Then, virtual interviews were conducted to identify the difficulties they faced based on the translation approaches of their choice. The target recipients, the Muslim minority of the US, were also surveyed to check their background knowledge of these rules and the meanings of some religious terms in this fatwa. Christine Nord’s (1991/2006) well-known theoretical framework for analyzing the intra- and extralinguistic factors affecting translation was used to understand the source text (ST) as well as the target text (TT) readers of this fatwa. This framework served this research as a meta-analysis of the functional translation approach on an Islamic text and was used to present a detailed discussion of the way extratextual, and intra-textual factors interrelate for the production of a TT. The analysis of such factors proves that identifying elements of the ST is relevant for the production of the TT, as well as for the establishment of procedures to be adopted in the process of producing a new text for a specific audience and specific purposes in the target communicative situation.
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Sustainable Indicators for Public Transportation: Assessment Model for Jeddah City Case StudyJeddah city is the second largest city in Saudi Arabia, due to its unique geographic location and the massive increase of the demographic density, as result of a rapid urban expansion there is a rising need to enhance the city’s transportation infrastructure. Furthermore, the urbanization has affected the streets safety, due to the significant increase in the use of motorization, reflected in a high level of traffic and dependence on the private vehicle. Hence, contributed in the decline of city sustainability leading to several urban issues such as: air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and economic downfalls. Although city transportation system is a vital pillar for the quality of life of the citizens, shading the light, that most of the cities, rely on public and private transportation and consider it as a key mode of commuting and logistics. Consiquensly, smart cities rely on using digital technology for smarter urban transport networks. Using resources which are more efficient and upgrades city utilities. Therefore, smart can be an innovative networked way of bringing together existing technology and resources to optimize their use through an integrated transport model. Consequently, this research attempts to investigate Sustainable Transportation Indicators in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. To ensure that the planned systems are following the international standards. Jeddah city is facing a Lack of quality and safe public transportation. The research aims to adopt economically viable, people-oriented and environment-friendly transport systems as a part of the sustainable development within the city. Moreover, this research adopts multiple strategies of quantitative and qualitative data collection techniques to achieve its goals and objectives. By exploring the application of smart transportation models within the city of Jeddah. Additionally, the result of the research is a set of sustainable indicators to assess sustainability in Jeddah’s transportation system. The indicators bring together; a combination between the various aspects of sustainability including; social, economic and environmental factors which contribute to the city development.
