The current study aimed at identifying the effect of strategic control on customer satisfaction with e-marketing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study used the descriptive approach. A questionnaire was prepared and administered to a sample of (315) customers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study found a statistically significant correlation at the significance level of (0.05) between all strategic control dimensions, customer satisfaction with e-marketing, and customer approval of the positivity towards the practices and advantages of strategic (...) control in e-marketing. There is also a statistically significant effect at the significance level of (0.05) for strategic control dimensions: (management information systems, strategic control methods, strategic evaluation) on customers' satisfaction in e-marketing. The current study recommended the need to pay attention to the strategic control function and benefit from its philosophy and the benefits that accrue to supporting customer satisfaction with e-marketing, and raising the efficiency and awareness of employees about strategic control in an organized manner in order to build their capabilities to support and implement control mechanisms and make the necessary improvements. (shrink)

Conhecer qualquer coisa sobre a realidade é fiar-se em signos, e viver a vida semioticamente é transformar a realidade através do design. De-sign é uma noção cunhada para introduzir a fusão de design e signos. No processo reiterativo de de-sign, não há separações ou limites absolutos entre o pensar e fazer como formas de conceber uma ação possível ou desenvolver ações posteriores. O livre movimento dentro de multiplicidades simultâneas, transcendendo a aparência das coisas e manipulando criativamente uma variedade de polaridades, (...) é inerente ao design thinking e à interpretação semiótica. Envolver-se no processo de de-sign é perseverar por vários paradoxos. Crenças contraditórias e antinomias desconcertantes são intrínsecas ao De-sign; elas não são apenas aceitáveis, como também bem-vindas, se pudermos desenvolver a capacidade de perseverar através deles. Paradoxos não são resultado de um erro em nosso raciocínio, mas de um defeito na nossa capacidade de lidar com uma dissonância cognitiva. Através da máxima do pragmatismo, nossos pensamentos e ações podem ser determinados e podemos avaliar quão apropriadas são suas consequências. É aqui que o pragmatismo, como método de determinar o significado do De-sign, determina a congruência entre a intenção de nossos pensamentos e a adequação de nossas ações. Como o pragmatismo é um método de experimentação que revela a eficácia do pensamento e da ação, o De-sign exige perseverança. Perseverar nos paradoxos do De-sign é estar à vontade com o que é e o que pode ou poderia ser, estar à vontade com a ambiguidade e a incerteza e ter paciência com o processo emergente daquilo-que-ainda-está-tornando-se e, assim compartilhar com a Divindade o ato agapástico da criação. (shrink)

Since the beginning of history humans have attempted to represent nature and culture through mimesis. This article focuses on the teleologicalaspects of mimesis and offers a different perspective that transcends the notion of sustainability into an eco-humanistic metamorphosis of culture and nature.Drawing from semiotics, phenomenology and architectural design the article challenges the polarization of mimetic representations of nature and culture,which are inclusive and homomorphic phenomena, and offers insight into the mutual mimesis of nature and culture. Two different empirical observationssubstantiate the (...) theoretical perspective: 1) a tradition advanced by the Egyptians’ stylization of visual representations of the mimicry of nature and culture; and 2) acurrent architectural design activity that integrates the mimesis of nature and culture. The article makes the case for a theoretical approach that integratesmimetic principles in creating a sustainable environment and an authentic ecoliving. The article concludes with ethical implications on the way we perceive themutual resemblances in nature and culture, and on our semiotic understanding of the teleological aspects of mimesis. (shrink)

Al-Ghazali is arguably one of the most influential thinkers in the history of Islam, and his writings have received greater scholarly attention in the West than those of any other Muslim scholar. This study explores an important dimension of his thought that has not yet been fully examined, namely, his polemical engagement with the Ismailis of the Fatimid and early Alamut periods. Published in association with The Institute of Ismaili Studies.

Theory of Mind is considered a person’s ability to understand his or her own mind and the minds of others, it includes a social-cognitive skill with implications for many aspects of children’s life, such as social competence, peer acceptance and early success in school. The aims of this research were to study the development of Theory of Mind and to investigate differences in the performance of Theory of Mind tasks across age groups and by gender in Saudi children. 264 children, (...) ranging from 3–12 years of age, participated in this study and were divided into three age groups. A Theory of Mind task battery was conducted individually, and the overall results indicated age and gender differences among our participants, as girls perform better than boys, and the older age groups perform better than they younger groups. (shrink)

This article explores how De-sign can be utilized as a navigational trajectory toward the integration of cultural sensitivity and environmental sensibility. It affirms that intentionality makes it possible for human beings to make meaning of their world. Navigating through trajectories for the purpose of seeking desired outcomes is a reiterative de-sign process that is constantly adjusting pragmatically. Because de-sign outcomes are only invariant aspects of the unfolding process of synechism and palingenesia, every de-sign situation is a unique journey toward infinite (...) possibilities of creation. De-signers, as agents of intentional change, become envoys of meaning-making that can integrate cultural sensitivity and environmental sensibility. De-sign intentionality makes our trajectories move toward envisioning a meaningful reality, one that goes beyond the schism between culture and nature, between built environment and natural environment. Trajectories innate to the de-sign process transform us into not only lifelong-learners competent of questioning absolute knowledge but also changing agents capable of moving beyond merely being inquisitive, to being reflective, contemplative knowers, genuinely integrating all aspects of the great biosemiosphere. (shrink)

This dialogue between two “semiotic animals” explores the paradox of life and death where death is not perceived as an absolute end or an inevitable aspect of life. The reciprocal and paradoxical relationship between life and death is at the core of the semiotic process. Death is an integral part of this semiotic process, like a door opening out on another transcending world with unpredictable outcomes. Not only does the dialogue reveal an insight into the semioethics of the ritualization of (...) life and death but it also exposes the disingenuous separation between the realms of zoosemiotics and anthroposemiotics. On ontological and epistemological levels, both zoosemiotics and anthroposemiotics are integrated reality that invariably cannot exist without one or the other in mutually transparent co-evolutionary processes purposefully oriented toward meaning making. (shrink)

John Deely uses the way of signs not only to establish the contact and dependencies between human thought and action and the surrounding physical universe, but also to account for a social construction of reality as part of human experience beyond mere “thinking thing”. Experiencing evolutionary love is a reciprocal exchange of desire, which is the primary strength of Eros, where eroticism and semiotics intertwine. When Deely states that all animals signify, but only human animals are capable of developing semiotics, (...) he opens a whole way of understanding for us to move beyond the definition of human being as a rational animal into a “semiotic animal” that is also capable of love. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 212 Seiten: 219-238.

Problem Background: Design is that complete process of planning and creating a form in a functionally satisfying way, bringing pleasure to the soul, and satisfying human need utilitarianly and aesthetically at the same time. The design has its elements, which is the vocabulary of the language of the form used by the designer artist, and the elements of the design line, and is considered a basic means of expression in plastic art, the researcher has noted that microscopes have a variety (...) of formulations of design elements, limited in the current research to try to reach the formal formulations of the line element as it appears in a sample of microscopes?. The Research Problem: The problem of the current research is summarized in the following question: What are the formal formulations of the line element as it appears in a sample of microscopic shapes? Research Objective: Detecting the formal formulations of the calligraphy element through a sample of microscopic shapes. Hypothesis of Research: There is a positive relationship between the type of formal formulations of the line element and the type of sample of microscopic shapes. Research Methodology: The current research follows the descriptive approach in its form: content analysis, where the researcher describes and classifies the formal formulations of the line element, as they appear in a sample of microscopic shapes. Research Results: The research reached a set of formal formulations of the line element through the microscopic sample used in the current research. (shrink)

The article examines the issue of public health and medical services in Algeria and analyses the role of the public and private sectors in supporting and promoting public health. Our study is based on an analysis of legal texts that highlight Algeria’s health policies. Some significant aspects of the article are: the Algerian policy of opening health services up to private investment; the lack of contribution of private health institutions in the field of medical education; and issues surrounding the organisation (...) of blood donation. The article also notes the absence of foreign investment in Algerian hospitals. (shrink)

Sustainability is the result of modern-day design philosophy as a result of major industrial developments and many conflicts and wars. This concept is what prompted this research to focus on the possibility of achieving the principles of sustainability practically - in field reality - through the use of artificial intelligence techniques to create contemporary designs derived from the Saudi Asiri heritage and employ them in printing sustainable clothing supplements. Heritage-inspired design has cultural meaning and importance, and its purpose is to (...) transmit our heritage to our emerging generations, and therefore it is considered a type of sustainable thought. The Asir region in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a rich heritage that is greatly influenced by the charming nature of the place. The Asir region is distinguished by the art of the “Asiri Cat,” which consists of engravings, lines, and aesthetic formations engraved by women specialized in this field. They inherited this art from the women who preceded them. Asiri art is distinguished from other arts. The use of bright natural colors such as blue, green, orange, black and white, as the Asir region is considered one of the important heritage and tourist areas within the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has played a pivotal role in enriching the cultural and creative stock not only of the Saudi citizen, but also of the Arabian Gulf region. This is what prompted us in the current research to delve into the analysis of the creative and artistic aspects of Asiri art inscriptions and to benefit from the aesthetic values of Asiri art decorations in contemporary artistic designs that achieve sustainability for the purpose of exploiting them in the manufacture of plastic fittings for clothing supplements to serve small industries. Many diverse designs have been implemented using different printing techniques. From (direct drawing method - stencil printing - pictorial screen printing) the use of different types and colors to implement different products to produce clothing accessories that are closely related to the structure of form and content of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art, and depends on its aesthetic philosophy about the heritage and cultural references associated with the place and the artist’s own vision. To revive Saudi heritage. The research aims to take advantage of the geometric and floral decorative elements in Al-Qat Al-Asiri’s artistic engravings as a source for enriching and sustaining printed designs for women’s clothing supplements that are characterized by authenticity and contemporaryness, and preserving popular motifs by reformulating them. In keeping with the times, and preserving its most prominent features, in a way that enhances belonging and preserves the community’s heritage and values. From extinction, endless horizons of creativity and innovation have been achieved in the field of printing clothing supplements, and sustainable plastic repetition, which the designer or art practitioner resorts to in general, and the field of printing in particular, as a creative pluralistic plastic method.The research followed the descriptive and analytical approach in identifying the origins and characteristics of the Asir artistic inscriptions (the cat), analyzing their vocabulary, reformulating them, and drawing inspiration from them to enrich the printed designs of women’s clothing supplements, in addition to the experimental approach in the applied study through the use of different techniques and materials. The results of the study concluded that there are various aesthetic values in the Asiri cat engraving that can be used to create contemporary designs on clothing accessories using different printing techniques, in order to preserve the Asiri heritage in the southern region of the country. The study recommended the need to pay attention to studying heritage and the arts it contains because of its great importance, as it stimulates appreciation of traditional art and preserves it. (shrink)

This study aimed to assess the integration, ethical considerations, and governance of artificial intelligence (AI) within the PhD programs at Midocean University. It specifically sought to understand PhD researchers' perceptions and attitudes towards AI and identify areas for enhancement in AI-related policies and educational initiatives. A descriptive analytical approach was adopted, utilizing an electronic questionnaire distributed to 105 PhD researchers, with 54 completing the survey. The questionnaire was designed to measure various aspects of AI usage, ethical concerns, and governance practices. (...) Statistical analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationships between AI awareness, ethical application, and governance perceptions. The findings revealed diverse perceptions of AI among researchers, indicating both opportunities and challenges in AI integration. The statistical analysis confirmed significant correlations between AI awareness and positive perceptions of ethical AI usage. However, the response rate and sample size posed limitations on the generalizability of the results. The study highlights the need for Midocean University to strengthen its AI governance frameworks and expand ethical guidelines to keep pace with technological advancements. Recommendations include enhancing AI-related educational programs, updating AI policies regularly, and promoting interdisciplinary research to foster an informed and ethically aware research community. (shrink)

The field of artistic works is witnessing continuous changes and developments in new sciences and modern technologies. This is due to the community’s need for these works of art, and as a result of the colored papers remaining from paper manufacturing factories that are not used. The idea of the research was to use these remains to enrich the artwork and give it a contemporary appearance by using colored paper draping techniques to enrich the aesthetic aspect of the artwork.The research (...) aims to achieve three basic axes: an axis to demonstrate the plastic possibilities of the art of colored paper quilling in its various forms, an axis to show the aesthetics of contemporary artwork from the remains of colored paper, and an axis concerned with the implementation of innovative artistic works that achieve sustainable development by linking them to create contemporary designs for use in the artistic work.. Collage style to enrich the field of artistic works among home economics students.Through these entries, the concept of collage art, its types, and its various plastic possibilities were clarified, and the different plastic possibilities of this art were identified. The research also relied on the experimental descriptive approach, through the experiment on fifth-level female students in home economics at King Khalid University. One of the most important results we reached. The hypotheses have been verified and it has been proven that experimenting with the remains of colored paper used in paper mills can achieve various plastic and tangible artistic values that enrich the artistic work of home economics students and achieve sustainable development. The current research recommends experimenting with the aesthetics of collage art using other materials. (shrink)

Small projects are among the most important projects that bring economic benefit to societies, especially developing societies, because of their effective role in training young people, investing in their energies, and urging them to establish their own small production units, which contributes to eliminating the phenomenon of the unemployment problem. The current research aims to design works of art using Asiri art motifs by recycling scraps of fabric, ready-made clothes, and furnishings using a patchwork method. This has led to an (...) interest in teaching industrial designers how to draw inspiration from Asiri art motifs and the different types that this art includes, whether geometric or floral, as a source of innovative and sustainable design in the field of artistic works using leftover factory fabrics. This is done through designs characterized by aesthetic and artistic values. Therefore, we made several designs suitable for use in artwork, inspired by the decorations of Asiri art in an abstract style, using the experimental descriptive approach. The research was based on three main axes: the axis of patchwork art techniques and the axis of sustainable development of the artwork. Focusing on Saudi traditional artistic decorations and combining them to develop small projects. The results of the research showed the possibility of utilizing leftover fabrics using the patchwork method to achieve sustainable development of artistic works derived from the decorations of Saudi Asiri art, benefiting from them in the field of small projects and employing them in innovative plastic compositions. Which combines simplicity and modernity, both in terms of design and performance. (shrink)

COVID-19 has crowned1 a number of other disasters (wildfires in Australia, Desert Locusts in Kenya, an imminent WWIII merging Iran and the US), causing panic to click into place and horror to become our global predicament, making us realize that we live in the illusion of the permanence of things, of mastery, and of immortality. People’s turning to social media for trans-local news on COVID-19 has stirred great ire in the world. This led to the proliferation of dark images that (...) associate the viral catastrophe with the end as we know it. To problematize the idea of the apocalypse (or the end) this paper speaks of three moments of survival in human existence: the beneath, the behind and the beyond. We argue that the apocalyptic nature of the pandemic and its global horrorism are part of a congeries of apocalyptic simulations that have always been part of the narrative with which we try to define ourexistence on earth. This paper masks itself against perfunctory examinations of the term apocalypse, and offers instead an understanding that runs along the lines of its Greek etymological sense as apokalyptein (revelation). It offers what Foucault calls an ontology of the present, that interrogates the history of COVID -19 with an emphasis neither on its origin nor on its telos. As beyondists, the COVID-19 catastrophe has revealed to us that 1) we have ‘access to knowledge beyond knowledge’ (see Gumpert Citation2012), and therefore that 2) our modern predicament is not very modern. The end, (not) to be sure, has been lived and relived in the boundary between reality and simulation. After all, the end of something comprises the beginning (in reverse) of that which “endeth”, throwing the beyond, behind and beneath in the Ferris wheel of epistemological and existential entanglement. (shrink)

_Islamicate Occult Sciences in Theory and Practice_ presents the latest research on Islamic occult sciences from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, namely intellectual history, manuscript studies and material culture.

By combining the art of Saudi heritage, because of its aesthetic values that increase and enrich the work, and the recycling of old environmental materials, innovative artistic artifacts were produced. The importance of the research came Attention was paid to the decorations of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art and benefiting from it in creating innovative artistic artifacts. The The research aims to demonstrate the aesthetic values of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art and benefit from them in creating innovative modern art objects through the idea (...) of recycling. The research assumes the possibility of making artistic artifacts through recycling using the idea of Al-Qat Al-Asiri art. The research problem is represented in the following question. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Martial: The World of the EpigramSven LorenzWilliam Fitzgerald. Martial: The World of the Epigram. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 2007. x + 258 pp.At the beginning of The World of the Epigram, Fitzgerald asks, “How does one read an epigrammatist?” (1). It is the question of how to come to terms with “the paradox of a book that is at the same time a random collection of (...) self-contained units” (4). At the end, Fitzgerald comes to the conclusion that the question “might be answered quite simply by replying that one can’t” (198).The heterogeneity of Martial’s Book of Epigrams makes it hard for us to get a grip on their respective character. Fitzgerald sees this as an apt representation of the world that Martial lives in. Like the Epigrammaton libri, everyday life in the city of Rome comprises numerous little bits and pieces, which may even be contradictory, and yet form a coherent whole: “The paradoxes and tensions of urban experience, as chronicled by Martial, are the worldly counterpart to the juxtapository environment of his books” (5). The concept of “juxtaposition” is crucial to Fitzgerald’s argument. For him, it is one of the main structural principles in Martial’s books.Having come up with a reading of the Epigrammaton libri as a kaleidoscopic representation of urban life myself (Erotik und Panegyrik: Martials epigrammatische Kaiser [Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002], 15–16), I certainly agree with Fitzgerald’s much more complex approach to read the books of epigrams as heterogeneous entities that are determined by “the combination of closeness and separation” (5). This, in turn, is also “a feature of urban environments, and one that decisively affects the urbanite’s experience” (5). It is especially convincing when Fitzgerald compares the reception of Martial’s books with “the paradoxical effect of the newspaper’s random juxtaposition of miscellaneous items” (7). And this reminds us of the fact that the seeming disorder of the books of epigrams may well be carefully planned, unlike the heterogeneity presented on modern newsprint.One of the most complex aspects of Martial’s careful design is the presentation of his poetic persona. The speaker of the epigrams is a contradictory character whose opinions may vary according to different situations. This, of course, is rather fitting for an author of such a diverse collection of poems. Fitzgerald reads the versatility of Martial’s poetic “I” as typical of a sophisticated character: “The succession of short, pointed, and various epigrams... creates the fiction of a man who can successfully negotiate the adversarial and competitive world of the city” (11–12). It is true that Martial’s persona plays a clever game of self-deprecation and the presentation of his own, lowly, genre as the top of the genre hierarchy (cf. David Banta, “Literary Apology and Literary Genre in Martial,” Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1998, one of the very few relevant titles that are missing from Fitzgerald’s extensive bibliography). And yet, the speaker’s tendency to contradict himself, as well as the various instances when he suffers sexual frustration or when other failures turn him into the butt of his own jokes, make me doubt whether he is really presented as a successful person. I still [End Page 439] prefer to see him as a comic figure that is not much better than the people who are attacked in many of Martial’s so-called “satiric” epigrams. Fitzgerald himself mentions the contradictory nature of the speaker and concedes that “in some respects he exemplifies the very qualities he mocks” (13).A case in point are the numerous allusions to Ovid’s exile poetry, which usually express the notion of distance: in Martial’s case, the distance between him and his powerful contemporaries or, in Books 3 and 12, the physical distance between him and the city of Rome. Fitzgerald is right to point out that “Martial’s condition is more fortunate” than Ovid’s. According to his interpretation (cf. R. A. Pitcher, in Toto notus in orbe: Perspektiven der Martial-Interpretation, ed. Farouk Grewing [Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998], 61–62), Martial describes “a different kind of distance, one... (shrink)

Die Grabanlage des Monthemhet (TT 34) I: Der Weg zur Sargkammer (R 44.1 bis R 53). By Louise Gestermann, Carolina Teotino, and Mareike Wagner. Mit einem Beitrag von Farouk Gomaà und Zeichnungen von Natalie Schmidt. 4 vols. Studien zur spätägyptischen Religion, vol. 31. Wies baden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2021. Pp. xxv + 1454, pls. €298.