• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.99-108
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• 2023

This study's goal is to investigate the effects of board size, the number of annual board meetings, the profitability of the company, and the audit Committee on the disclosure of climate change in Saudi companies listed on the stock exchange. It was conducted to evaluate affecting some factors on carbon emissions by the regression model. The study uses the content analysis method. Data was collected from the annual and sustainability reports, and the platform database Refinitiv, an LSEG (London Stock Exchange Group Company) for the period 2018 to 2021. The study sample is 51 companies. The study findings showed Saudi Arabia saw its first significant overall drop in CO2 emissions with a 22.61 MtCO2 decline (3.93%) in 2018. The study revealed a positive connection between the size of the director's board, and the disclosure of carbon emissions in Saudi firms listed on the stock market. While other factors are not related to the number of director's board meetings, the audit committee, and the profitability of the company on the disclosure of carbon emissions in the Saudi companies listed on the stock exchange.

• Asian Journal of Business Environment
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.25-33
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• 2022

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to determine the effects of the Real Estate Transactions Tax (RETT) on the economic cycles of Saudi Arabia. A secondary purpose is to determine the effects of RETT on the construction and real estate sectors of Saudi Arabia. Research design, data and methodology: The data used is retrieved from the General Authority of Statistics, Saudi Central Bank and the World Bank Open Data. Econometric models of multiple linear regression with dummy variables have been conducted to achieve the objectives and to quantitatively verify the hypotheses. Results: With the VAT exemption in real estate transactions and its substitution with RETT, a positive effect on the economy and the real estate sector has been observed. However, this tax reform has not produced any significant effects in the construction sector. Conclusions: The main conclusion of the present research is that the real estate market has a major influence on economic cycles. After the tax reform, a reduction in the contribution of taxes on real estate transactions to GDP was detected. For the construction sector, after the tax reform, it is estimated that there will be an insignificant reduction in the contribution of the real estate price index, and of the taxes on real estate transactions, to GDP.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.23 no.10
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• pp.30-36
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• 2023

In today's worldwide environment, information systems (IS) usage is growing swiftly. As a result, it now affects every aspect of life and serves as a general growth tool for individuals, groups, and governments. information system success (ISS) is affected by customer satisfaction and their acceptance of using these services. In addition, this issue will be a critical thing for SMEs, especially in Saudi Arabia. SMEs have a shortage and lack IT experience and resources. The research's question is What are the ISS that will improve customer satisfaction and SME performance in Saudi Arabia. Through an online survey, The data on how Saudi SMEs succeed in IS was acquired. Citizens and residents users in Saudi Arabia, representing a range of ages and educational backgrounds. In the IS success factors evaluation, which assessed the degree of agreeability and disagreeability of specific statements related to the six dimensions based on the empirical data, it was found that the users agreed with the majority of the claims. For users, usability is the most important feature. This study discovered that enhancing the system's overall user experience might lead to higher overall satisfaction.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.2069-2072
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• 2015

Background: Lymphoma is one of the most common malignancies affecting the young Saudi population. This disease has diversified pathologies and clinical stages that necessitate well optimized clinical management. Regular updates of epidemiological behavior of lymphoma from various parts of the world are available but studies from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in this field are not consistent. Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate the current trends in presentation and distribution of lymphoma with special reference to incidence and mortality, gender, age, histopathological subtypes, and clinical stages at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSH&RC). Materials and Methods: Our study included lymphoma data from Saudi Cancer Registry, and relative comparison against KFSH&RC tumor registry data, Gulf country data and International Agency for Research on Cancer data. Results: Common tumors in the West (lung, colon, and prostate) were found to be much less frequent in KSA while leukemia, lymphoma and thyroid cancers were more common. Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) ranked 3rd most common cancer with age-adjusted incidence of 6/100,000. Estimated age adjusted mortality was 4/100,000 in KSA. There was a peak rise in incidence of lymphoma in 1997-2007. Most common NHL was diffuse large B cell lymphoma at KFSH&RC. A total of 434 cases were diagnosed in 5 years with 55% of them at advanced stage and 35% demonstrating bulky disease and high risk. KFSH&RC registered 35% of Hodgkins and 21% of total NHL identified in entire Saudi Cancer Registry, 2009. Conclusions: Results of this study are very unique, and reveal diverse trends. The findings provide valuable insights in the understanding of current epidemiological features of lymphoma in this part of the world.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.655-660
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• 2016

Smoking is accountable for the fatality of a substantial number of persons and increases the likelihood of cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Although data have shown high prevalence rates of cigarette smoking in Saudi Arabia, relatively little is known about the broader scope. The objectives of this study were to investigate socio-demographic factors, patterns of use and cessation behavior associated with smoking in Saudi Arabia (KSA). The study utilized a cross-sectional, multi-step design of sampling. Residents (N=1,497; aged 15 years and older) were recruited from seven administrative areas in Southwest Saudi Arabia. A pretested questionnaire was utilized to obtain data on participant cigarette smoking, including their daily use, age, education, income, marital status and employment status. The current study is the first of its kind to gather data cessation behavior of Saudi subjects. With the exception of 1.5% females, all the respondents were male. The majority of the respondents were married, had a university level of education, were employed, and were younger than 34 years old. The same trends were also observed among smokers' samples. The current prevalence of cigarette smoking was 49.2% and 65.7% of smokers had smoking at less than 18 years of age. The mean daily use amongst smokers was 7.98 cigarettes (SD=4.587). More than 50% of the study sample had tried at least once to quit smoking. However, 42% of the smokers participating had never. On the other hand, about 25% of the respondents were willing to consider quitting smoking in the future. Modeling of cigarette smoking suggested that the most significant independent predictors of smoking behavior were geographic area, gender, marital status, education, job and age. Considerable variation in smoking prevalence was noted related with participant sociodemographics. Findings recommend the necessity for control and intervention programs in Saudi community.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.8 no.5
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• pp.1567-1587
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• 2014

Virtual Machine (VM) resource management is crucial to satisfy the Quality of Service (QoS) demands of various multimedia services in a media cloud platform. To this end, this paper presents a VM resource allocation model that dynamically and optimally utilizes VM resources to satisfy QoS requirements of media-rich cloud services or applications. It additionally maintains high system utilization by avoiding the over-provisioning of VM resources to services or applications. The objective is to 1) minimize the number of physical machines for cost reduction and energy saving; 2) control the processing delay of media services to improve response time; and 3) achieve load balancing or overall utilization of physical resources. The proposed VM allocation is mapped into the multidimensional bin-packing problem, which is NP-complete. To solve this problem, we have designed a Mixed Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model, as well as heuristics for quantitatively optimizing the VM allocation. The simulation results show that our scheme outperforms the existing VM allocation schemes in a media cloud environment, in terms of cost reduction, response time reduction and QoS guarantee.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.13 no.8
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• pp.3879-3887
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• 2012

Background: Development of effective educational strategies should accompany increases in public awareness and the availability of genetic testing for breast cancer (BC). These educational strategies should be designed to fulfill the knowledge gap while considering factors that influence women's interest in order to facilitate decision making. Objective: To determine the possible correlates of Saudi women's interest in BC genes testing including socio-demographics, the level of awareness towards BC genes, the family history of BC and the perceived personal risk among adult Saudi women in Al Hassa, Saudi Arabia. Subjects and methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out during the second BC community-based campaign in Al Hassa, Saudi Arabia. All Saudi women aged ${\geq}18$ years (n=781) attending the educational components of the campaign were invited to a personal interview. Data collection included gathering information about sociodemographics, family history of BC, the perceived personal risk for BC, awareness and attitude towards BC genes and the women's interest in BC genes testing. Results: Of the included women (n=599), 19.5% perceived higher risk for BC development, significantly more among < 40 years of age, and with positive family history of BC before 50 years of age. The participants demonstrated a poor level of awareness regarding the inheritance, risk, and availability of BC genetic testing. The median summated knowledge score was 1.0 (out of 7 points) with a knowledge deficit of 87.8%. The level of knowledge showed significant decline with age (> 40 years). Of the included women 54.7% expressed an interest in BC genetic testing for assessing their BC risk. Multivariate regression model showed that being middle aged (Odds Ratio 'OR'=1.88, confidence intervals 'C.I'=1.14-3.11), with higher knowledge level (OR=1.67, C.I=1.08-2.57) and perceiving higher risk for BC (OR=2.11, C.I=1.61-2.76) were the significant positive correlates for Saudi women interest in BC genetic testing. Conclusion: Saudi women express high interest in genetic testing for BC risk despite their poor awareness. This great interest may reflect the presence of inappropriate information regarding BC genetic testing and its role in risk analysis.

• Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.2669-2673
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• 2014

Aim: To evaluate the predominant colorectal polyps in the Almadinah region of Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: In this iretrospective study, we analyzed pathology reports of colonoscopies performed in King Fahad Hospital, Madinah, Saudi Arabia during the period 2006 to 2013. Data based on patient age, gender, size, site and type of polyps and the degree of dysplasia were analyzed by software SPSS 17 and compared with other published studies from different geographic regions of the world. Results: During these years, 224 patients had colonic polyps, of whom 149 (66.5%) were men and 75 (33.5%) were women. The most common types of polyps were adenomatous (166), followed by hyperplastic polyps (24), juvenile (18), inflammatory (13), lipomatous (2) and one patient with Peutz-Jegher polyps. Tubulovillous adenoma was the commonest adenomatous polyp (102), followed by tubular (41) and villous (23) types. The sigmoid colon was the most commonly involved region (36.6%). Dysplasia was significantly associated with female patients who had large size tubulovillous polyps located in the left colon. Conclusions: The type and distribution of colorectal polyps in Saudi Arabia is very similar to Western countries. Patient gender, and size, histological type and location of polyps are closely related to dysplastic change in colonic polyps.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.71-81
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• 2020

Purpose: This case study illustrates the successful entry of Saudi Aramco in the Korean market and how it grows to become one of the world's largest integrated energy enterprises. Research design, data and methodology: This case investigates diverse secondary sources to examine the entry strategy of Aramco in Korea, such as several interviews including public and anonymous dialogues, periodicals, dispatches (i.e. news articles and magazines), annual reports, industrial reports, and others. Results: The main concern for the international strategic approaching of Saudi Aramco is to enter into Korean market by joint venture with SsangYong Oil (today's S-Oil Corporation) in 1991 and finally, ending by Acquisition of S-Oil in 2015. This acquisition of local No.3 company, S-Oil, in Korea is the successful case in Asian Markets overcoming liability of foreignness. Moreover, Saudi Aramco's global distribution strategy through localization in the Korean market is appropriate given the market conditions, timing, effectiveness, and efficiency by sharing their resources and collaborating. Conclusions: It would be valuable, unique, and real story to analyze global leading company's entry and globalization strategy in overseas market. In addition, this study provides decision-makers with a significant and more strategic implication for the overseas expansion of businesses.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.9
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• pp.45-52
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• 2018

Purpose - This case study is dedicated to the study of the presence of KIA Motors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and its market and entry strategies for strategic globalization that allowed the company to establish itself within a conservative and clustered marketplace dominated by American and Japanese international brands. Research Design, data, and methodology - The main information for the case was gathered through an interview and questionnaire from the executives of the KIA Al Jabr, which got the exclusive dealership in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, secondary data were obtained from reliable and authoritative sources such as the Saudi government agency publications, newspapers, international business journals. Other related periodicals based on the results from previous and current studies on similar topics were critically reviewed as well. Results - The findings of this paper show the different business environments of the Saudi market and the importance of various points regarding the company's global entry strategy even if the host market culture is quite different in many ways from other international markets. Conclusions - This case can provide Korean companies interested in the Middle East with insight into market penetration and global strategy, and present various perspectives and implications for global market access as well.