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    Leading Culturally Diversie teams in the United Arab Emirates
    (British University in Dubai, 2008-11) AbdelHakim, Muna
    In the globalisation era, cultural diversity in business environments has increased dramatically. A number of researchers have been studying this concept, trying to devise different cultural frameworks for both leaders and team members to work effectively. The purpose of this research is to enhance the performance of culturally diverse teams. This is approached by attempting to improve the leadership in these contexts. The research process used mixed qualitative and quantitative research methods to attain comprehensive results. It includes a review of the current literature, followed by three case studies which involve surveys, interviews, and observations. The major findings indicate that there is no unique successful leadership model to be followed in the multinational settings. However, emotional intelligence is seen as a significant quality for effectual multicultural team management. Moreover, a set of actions are suggested to effectively manage culturally diverse teams. Due to the time limitations of this research, a list of related research topics is suggested for future research.
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    The Contribution of the UAE School Inspection Framework as a Quality Assurance Tool for School Transformation and Performance Improvement
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2017-09) EL SAADI, DINA HUSSEIN
    Systematic quality management, even though originally developed in the industrial sector, has become equally applicable to the educational sector. There has been an increased pressure on the educational sector to improve their standards through industry-tailored quality assurance strategies. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the quest for knowledge based economic development is directly in line with the need to overcome the “impulsive laziness” that accompanies natural resource endowment. There have been increasing concerns regarding the ability of national educational reforms to meet modern challenges and requirements for the current rapidly transforming global and information technology environments. The study investigates the contribution of the UAE School Inspection Framework (SIF) as a quality assurance tool for school transformation and performance improvements. The study adopts a quantitative approach to help arrive at conclusive relationships between the variables in testing key hypotheses. Data was collected using Google Forms online data collection platform and analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistic Software version 23. Findings reveal that school quality assurance metrics are good predictors of school transformation and school performance, the UAE Inspection Framework is also a significant predictor of school transformation and school performance. Among the school global transformation indicators, sustainability is the only factor that supports school performance development. Finally, a positive and moderately strong association exists between school quality assurance and the UAE Inspection framework as a quality assurance metric. It is recommended that American schools in Dubai must fine-tune global school transformation elements in line with school performance indicators so as to remain globally competitive in an increasingly globalized world.
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    Effects and challenges in teaching robotics for elementary students
    (The British University in Dubai, 2019-04) Addas, Alaa
    Developing the curriculum to support the students' abilities and talents especially in the field of problem-solving and critical thinking is one of the most important objectives that the UAE seeks to achieve. The purpose of this study is to explore the effect of teaching robotics for elementary students to understand the basic concepts of programming. In addition, the study aimed to investigate the challenges of teaching robotics for elementary students as well as the effect of educational robotics on students’ problem-solving and critical thinking skills. The applied programming language is based on programming blocks, and the target group of students is fourth grade students in one American Curriculum School. The number of participants students was 115 students, and he data of this study were gathered through conducting observations, questionnaire, and multiple programming assessments. The process of teaching robotics and programming for the students continued for 11 weeks. After that, the students were asked to solve different programming assessments. The programming assessments conducted three times during robotics course to show the progress of the students’ programming skills. The assessments were applied to evaluate the impact of depending on teaching robotics as main way to teach programming. The results of study showed that using educational robotics is an effective tool that increase the students’ engagement and interest levels in the classes and to develop the students’ problem-solving and critical thinking skills. Additionally, the results indicated that using programming blocks to teach programming helps the students to understand the majority of many programming concepts, but at the same time some concepts were difficult for the students to understand and apply.
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    Comfort Assessment of a Fully/Semi-enclosed Courtyard: Case Study of Bahrain Low Rise Villa Housing Model
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2011-06) Al Awadhi, Maryam Hasan
    The built form industry specifically the residential sector contributes directly on energy consumption and increase of ecological footprint. Bahrain changing built form typology and configuration from introverted to extroverted built forms increased the need of cooling and humidity control measures, by affecting human comfort within the built form. Therefore, extroverted built form contributed to the deteriorating of the environment's comfort level and effected microclimatic conditions. Traditionally, the courtyard built form did not consume excessive amount of energy due to its sustainable microclimatic condition by offering thermal comfort. A scientific literature review of the courtyard built form and its design parameters that affect the courtyard performance were analyzed. Moreover, Bahrain climatic condition as the context of this study was evaluated to relate to the study. This study is an evaluation of the microclimatic condition of both the traditional fully enclosed courtyard and the semi-enclosed courtyard and its influence on the comfort level for the courtyard itself and further its influence on the living room as a selected occupied space within the case study house. The fully enclosed courtyard was integrated within an extroverted modular house for Bahrain case study. As the introverted courtyard built form is achieved, openings were integrated in forming two different courtyard shapes. The study varying parameters were: the courtyard shape, opening orientation, and active mode. Those parameters are assessed on thermal comfort, natural daylight penetration, solar exposure, and airflow through simple CFD representation. ii Ecotect Analysis computer simulation software was used to simulate the two different courtyard configurations, Courtyard-T that represents the fully enclosed courtyard and Courtyard-S that represents the semi-enclosed courtyard. Courtyard-S presents two shapes Courtyard-S-U and Courtyard-S-C. Three orientations and not all as the West and East performance are similar were studied for each configuration and shape: North, South, and West. The simulations were carried out in 21st of June and 21st of December representing extreme seasons summer and winter. The assessments of the results revealed that the fully enclosed courtyard "Courtyard-T" mitigates and modifies the courtyard and living room microclimatic conditions. It recorded to have the lowest exposure to solar radiation, lowest solar heat gain, and highest temperature differential within the living room, also highest air temperature differential within the courtyard, and adequate illuminance level and distribution within the living room. The major value of Courtyard-T configuration is that it has an opening percentage of 30% in relation to the built form. The living room space extends to 5.2208m in order to maintain the total area. The Northern and Eastern courtyard wall has an additional door and two window openings. Courtyard-S-U demonstrated poor performance in all assessments. Courtyard-S-C resulted in modifying the courtyard and living room microclimatic condition, specifically Courtyard-S-C-W, however, it performance was not efficiently as Courtyard-T. The major value of Courtyard-S-C-W configuration is that it has a opening of 2.25m2 oriented on the West. The Southern side of the living room has been deducted to regain the area that was added by the courtyard opening, thus, the courtyard window and door openings shifted 200mm North. Courtyard-S-C-W receives lower solar radiation exposure, lower wind speed within the courtyard, best temperature difference within the courtyard compared to the exterior, and the highest hours of thermal comfort. The courtyard configuration, shape, orientation, geometry, and percentage of enclosure affect its performance. As the opening size increases, simultaneously the wind speed within the courtyard increases. iii It revealed that percentage of enclosure, opening dimensions, courtyard geometry, courtyard shape, and indoor space geometry manipulates the comfort levels within the built form. Sun and wind distribution and exposure in relation to the courtyard shape and opening size demonstrated plausible explanation to their impact on comfort levels. Thus, the study concluded that Courtyard-T configuration promotes an efficient microclimatic condition, and performs best in modifying temperatures, thermal comfort, and light and air distribution. The study suggests some recommendations for further studies in terms of courtyard performance.
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    The impact of contractors attributes on a successful road project in Abu Dhabi
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2014-10) Alameri, Faisal Ahmed
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    The Effects of Different Faucet Aerators on Bacterial Growth and Water Quality
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2011-04) Bader, Mahmoud Fathi
    Sustainable innovations aimed at protecting future generations from the effects of the global warming in addition to preserving precious natural resources such as water. Water conservation is one of the green building features, which may be achieved by using appropriate water saving plumbing fixtures like faucet aerators. Although benefit may be achieved by using such fixtures, there are also negative side effects to their use. This study was conducted in Dubai International Academic City (DIAC), to investigate the consequences of using different faucet aerators on bacterial re-growth which may compromise the quality of the water; and to check the deterioration of the efficiency of the aerators over the time. The study is based on experimental method. Four types of faucet aerators were used, and monitored every four weeks over a six month period. 120 water samples were collected from 16 faucet aerators, and there were also 3 control points which were under three different water pressures. The water tank was also tested. A Heterotrophic Plate count was used since it is a common indicator for the monitoring of microbiological water quality in distribution systems. The samples were tested in Dubai Municipality Central Laboratory. The water flow rates, pH and temperatures were measured in the field. The results revealed that, from cycle one to cycle four, the HPC bacteria concentration in the water tank exceeded the threshold level of 500 cfu/ml. Although the HPC concentration in the water tank dropped to a 4 level below 500 cfu/ml due to treatment from the main source, the HPC concentrations in the faucet aerators remained high. The study concluded that, water pressure less than 2.5 water bar has potential to enhance the growth of bacteria in the aerators. Furthermore, the aerators saved 20% to 80% of the water and that depended on the aerator types as well as the water pressure. Finally the research recommends that, a three month periodic maintenance for the aerators might avoid the accumulation of sediments, which were the main contributor to bacterial growth.
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    The effectiveness of task-based instruction on third-year secondary students’ English speaking performance
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2022-06) BADR, HAYTHAM MORSHED ELSAYED ABDALLA
    This study intended to investigate the impact of task-based instruction (TBI) as a communicative teaching strategy on secondary students’ oral production of more fluent, lexically sophisticated, lexically diverse and syntactically complex language as well as exploring teachers’ perceptions and opinions towards the possibility of effective and successful use of this strategy to improve secondary students’ speaking abilities in the Egyptian classroom context. The underlying hypothesis was the ability of TBI to bring about the necessary outcome in terms of fluency, lexical sophistication, lexical diversity and syntactic complexity as a result of the communicative environment created and the mental process enhanced by TBI. The mixed-methods research approach was embraced to glean the research data from two different samples using two main research tools: pre-post tests to collect the quantitative data and semi-structured interviews to gather the qualitative data. Five other research tools were utilized in the current research including an Oxford quick placement test to ensure the homogeneity of the research sample in terms of language proficiency level prior to the experiment and four automatic computer-based tools (Praat, TAALES, TAALED and L2SCA) to accurately and objectively score and assess students’ oral performance on four fluency measures, three lexical sophistication measures, three lexical diversity measures and four syntactic complexity measures. The quantitative data was deductively collected from ninety two second language students equally and randomly divided into two intact groups, while the qualitative data was inductively gleaned from eight language teachers. The results from the quantitative data exhibited the positive impact of TBI on students’ speaking performance for some of the measures examined, despite the short treatment period which lasted for eleven weeks. Moreover, the results from the qualitative data revealed the conflicting beliefs of teachers towards TBI; namely, the ability of TBI to improve secondary students’ speaking skills but with some challenges against its implementation in the Egyptian classroom settings. Based on these results, some pedagogical implications were provided to be considered by language teachers, syllabus designers, administrative officials and researchers in the second language acquisition (SLA) domain and some other recommendations for future potential readers and researchers were made.
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    Smart Safe Cities Technology Architecture to Assure Citizens’ Happiness and Future Foresight to Achieve United Arab Emirates 100 Year Vision: Response Readiness, National Resilience and Future Accelerations
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2017-07) AL HASSAN, MOHAMMAD KHALED
    Smart cities have emerged quite rapidly across the globe, be it the Masdar City in partuclar Abu Dhabi the capital of UAE, or in London, or Washington irrespective of the economy being developed, developing or emerging. This is primarily given the usefulness of such cities to enable transparency and efficiency within the city functions. In this research, the focus on the ‘safety’ aspect within smart cities, bringing forth the implementations requirement to transform a smart city into safety city for UAE. The aim of this research is to build a conceptual framework to enable the transformation of smart city into SSC, supporting citizen happiness, future accelerations and sharing future governments. Over the years, various models and theories were proposed to enable organizations into smart organizations, with one such being the institutional theory. The theory has been utilized extensively, in collaboration with other theories such as the Lewin’s model of 3-stage or the barrier-driver model developed for e-governments. The case considered for this research was Abu Dhabi Government in UAE, with the research questions and objectives set out and achieved through the aid of a quantitative survey questionnaire. The sample selected for the research was public sector of Abu Dhabi. With a detailed review of the factors (internal and external) of smart cities and e-government (as the base), the study reviewed the benefits, barriers as well as risks that entail the transformation of smart cities to SSC within the context of UAE. Based on the findings of the data analysis, the conceptual framework developed was validated followed by a re-conceptualization to suit the Abu Dhabi Government. Recommendations were built to support the extension of the framework to smart city models in other countries to focus and build on the safety aspect, thus achieving citizen happiness and boost future development.
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    The Use of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in Construction: An exploration of current challenges for collaborative construction
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2018-05) SABRI, MAEN
    The Construction market represents more than 10% of the global economy, and the demand for infrastructure project is increasing due to population increase. Particularly, in the UAE, the construction market is considered one of the best markets compared to other Middle Eastern countries due to the availability of international companies involved in the construction activity. The use of the Building Information Modelling (BIM) technology provides a developed communication system to ensure effective collaboration between all stakeholders when running constructions. This research explores the reasons which prevent the UAE construction market from switching to the collaborative construction approach, by highlighting the current use of BIM in some of the running projects in UAE market. In addition, this research explores the challenges facing BIM users. A quantitative approach was followed, using a survey questionnaire as an instrument. The main result of the study was that the current practice of BIM implementation in UAE construction industry is not strong, and needs improvement in many sections, such as cost estimation according to BIM requirements.