Suchergebnisse

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) use social media to communicate effectively with stakeholders. However, little is known about the influence wielded by social media adoption on sustainable performance during COVID-19. Based on the technology–organization–environment (TOE) framework, our study developed an integrated model to explore the factors affecting social media adoption and its effect on sustainable performance in SMEs in the Saudi Arabian context. The quantitative method of a survey was used to collect data from SMEs owner-managers and CEOs. Partial least square was used to analyze data collected from 609 respondents. The findings revealed that environmental factors (i.e., the intensity of the competition, competitive pressure, and the bandwagon effect), technological factors (i.e., relative advantages and compatibility), and organizational factors have been the key drivers of social media adoption in SMEs during COVID-19. It also indicated that social media adoption is a key predictor of social, environmental, and economic sustainability. This study provides SMEs with meaningful implications about ways of fostering sustainable performance.

This study investigates the integration of sustainability into Enterprise Architecture (EA) and its impact on organizational performance. It examines how sustainable EA practices influence efficiency, compliance with environmental regulations, stakeholder engagement, and innovation within organizations. The research employs a structured Likert scale questionnaire targeting professionals in various industries. Findings reveal a positive correlation between sustainable EA practices and improved organizational performance, regulatory compliance, and innovation. However, challenges such as high costs and organizational resistance persist, particularly for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The study highlights the importance of leadership support and technological readiness in overcoming these barriers. This research contributes to understanding the strategic role of sustainability in EA, offering insights for enhancing organizational resilience and competitiveness.
Keywords: Enterprise Architecture (EA); Sustainability; Sustainable EA practices; Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)

This thesis explores the boundaries between the concepts of utopia and dystopia by analyzing how recent texts view the pillars of dystopian literature. Specifically, it investigates the discrepancy between the stance of Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business and Don DeLillo in White Noise in situating the visions of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley within the context of the new media age. In Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business Neil Postman draws a dichotomy between the prophecies of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley. He claims that Orwell's vision of the future which he presents in 1984, an existence marked by authoritarian government control exercised through restricted access to information, has proven to be invalid in the age of new media. Postman also claims that a more accurate vision of the future was provided by Aldous Huxley in Brave New World. In this thesis I argue that White Noise, in fact, favors the Orwellian perspective. As opposed to Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, White Noise does not perceive the limitations of the form, or the innate human appetite for amusement for that matter, to be causes for the omnipresent tragic outcome of media consumption that we witness today, rather, it distinguishes them as tools utilized for creating and directing this outcome. Although there are major differences between the causes of compliance constituting authoritarianism in 1984 and in Brave New World (external and internal) and the ways in which authoritarianism is executed (through deprivation or overabundance), there are still undeniable traces of the existence of a general base/superstructure power dynamic that is heightened through mass media technology and that manifests itself through the content of the newer forms. This analysis of the power of the newer form in maintaining the status quo illuminates the psychological conditioning exercised through them. This reveals the dynamics of our current consumerist utopia and, thereby, raises infinite questions on the conceptual essence of both utopia and dystopia and the nature of their borders.

We know that female students in computer science, CS, are fewer than male students in Western countries. What is not well understood is the high rate of Saudi female students in CS. This article explores why female students choose to study CS in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, KSA. Data was collected through structured interviews with ten female students in three different universities in the KSA. The content analysis approach was used. This study determines the students' experiences in studying CS. The findings of this study are a first step in paying more attention to the system of women's education in the KSA. Motivation and expectation regarding CS were investigated. Results showed that the reasons behind the engagement of Saudi female students in CS are government support, family influence, and a stable workplace. The results could help to improve the CS curriculum and program of preparation for CS teachers in the KSA.

Sensor nodes have limited processing power, small storage capacity and limited energy. These constraints make classical security algorithms unsuitable for WSNs (Wireless Sensor Networks). Therefore, new techniques that consider these limitations are needed. WSNs have a wide range of applications, including military field surveillance, healthcare, homeland security, industrial control, and intelligent green aircraft. Therefore, network security has become increasingly important. There are various types of attacks that may cause security problems, such as modification attacks and selective forwarding attacks. This thesis investigates three security problems in WSNs. Firstly, we investigate the problem of minimizing the failure rate of packet delivery in the presence of modification attacks and selective forwarding attacks in a static WSN with one base station without using expensive encryption/decryption algorithms. We propose a novel heuristic approach to this problem. Our approach is based on randomized multipath routing. Secondly, we investigate the problem of constructing a shortest path overhearing tree with the maximum lifetime for data collection. We propose three approaches for homogeneous WSNs and heterogeneous WSNs. The first one is a polynomial-time heuristic approach. The second one uses ILP (Integer Linear Programming) to iteratively find a monitoring node and a parent for each sensor node. The last one optimally solves the problem by using MINLP (Mixed- Integer Non-Linear Programming). Lastly, we investigate the reliable and secure end-to-end data aggregation problem considering selective forwarding attacks and modification attacks in homogeneous cluster-based WSNs, and propose three data aggregation approaches which can defend against both modification attacks and selective forwarding attacks. Our approaches use secret sharing and signatures to allow aggregators to aggregate the data without understanding the contents of messages and the base station to verify the aggregated data and retrieve the ...

John Updike's Terrorist (2006) tackles the fraught theme of the 'homegrown' Muslim American terrorist. The novel's suspenseful plot, culminating in the young terrorist's capitulation following the intervention of his high school counselor, contains logical inconsistencies that appear to lessen believability or to demand the suspension of disbelief for the sake of a certain air of surreality, which may echo the would-be terrorist's own sense of his environment. This paper explores the idea that logical and thematic inconsistencies in the novel, including deep ambivalence in the depiction of the female characters, are devices deliberately put in place to highlight a gendered psychodrama and construct a strongly patriarchal worldview, both of which offer near-experiential insight into the young terrorist's own perspective.

Undeniably mass media have become the primary source of information and communication for the majority of, if not all, members of modern societies. The nature of the information thus communicated and the manner in which it is dispensed through media certainly have a profound influence on people's perceptions of the world around them. The relation between the media, on one hand, and culture, social life, and politics on the other, is an interesting one in which media fulfills dual functions, reflecting and also shaping issues occurring within these three domains (Bell & Garrett, 1998). In the initial media coverage of the 2011 Norway terrorist attacks, some western media authors, inaccurately and unjustly, held Muslims and Islamic groups as being responsible for the attacks. Using Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this study seeks to ascertain how language was manipulated in this coverage of the terrorist attacks in order to give expression to blind prejudice against Islam and Muslims. As findings of the analyses reveal, the tones of allegation in these articles and reports differed dramatically from one article to another ranging from tones of mere suspicion to those of overt accusation. The varying degrees of uncertainty or assertion of the authors' statements were reflected in the varied linguistic forms and devices used within the discourse.