This thesis focuses on e-government implementation and related institutional adoption and diffusion factors in Omani public sector organisations. With the advancement of the Internet and supporting Information and Communication Technologies, e-government has emerged as an effective means of delivering government services to citizens. While most early e-government efforts were concentrated on developed countries, in the recent past, it has also become popular in many developing countries. Most notably are the Middle Eastern countries that have continued to invest significantly into e-government initiatives in the last five years. However, compared to the West, the progress of e-government implementation and diffusion has been laggard in the Middle East region. The Sultanate of Oman is one such example, where, although large investments have been made since 2003 to facilitate the implementation of its electronic services, limited progress has been made in terms of realising fully functional e-government. The aim of this thesis is to examine the institutional factors influencing the development and implementation of e-government in the context of Oman using case study based research. From an institutional perspective economic, political and social as well as technological issues signify the most fundamental pressures that organisations face when initiating e-government implementation led change. Using institutional theory as a conceptual lens, this thesis aims to provide a better understanding of the internal and external pressures that influence the success of e-government projects. This research identified nineteen different factors influencing the progress of the national e-government project, e-Oman, from a public sector organisational perspective. Further, a conceptual model for examining e-government implementation has been developed and evaluated empirically within the context of Oman. By doing so, this research contributes to the body of knowledge by identifying the institutional factors that contributes to the success of e-government implementation and explaining its paradoxes.

The main aims of this thesis are to assess the efficiency of the current bankruptcy system in Oman and to offer specific proposals for bankruptcy reform to be adopted by the Omani legislator. Where appropriate, in proposing solutions for various issues lessons will be taken from the experience of both England and the US. This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter is a general introduction to the thesis which outlines the structure and scope of the study. Chapter Two critically explores the main theories underpinning bankruptcy law across the world. The aim of this exploration is to provide a general understanding of the policies underpinning bankruptcy laws and to establish the view of this thesis. Chapter Three discusses the experience of England and the US by identifying the main differences and similarities between bankruptcy proceedings in these jurisdictions; such discussion is necessary as a basis for determining the possibility of taking lessons from these developed bankruptcy regimes. Chapter Four provides a critical analysis of the current bankruptcy regime in Oman and outlines the key features of this regime. This chapter also discusses in detail the main issues with the current bankruptcy regime. This discussion includes: (1) the definition of bankruptcy; (2) the qualification of persons administering bankruptcy processes (3) ranking of creditors; (4) position of employees; (5) available alternatives under the current regime; and (6) the effect of declaration of bankruptcy on existing contracts. Chapter Five outlines the possibility of legal transplants and why it is desirable for Oman to adopt some of the bankruptcy principles that are found in England and the US. However, to avoid the risk of rejection of such transplants, this thesis will highlight the necessity of assessing the functionality and workability of western bankruptcy principles before transplanting them. This chapter also offers a proposal for future bankruptcy reform in Oman. Such reforms include having a clear statutory mandate, making bankruptcy law certain and predictable, and establishing a bankruptcy regime that encourage the rehabilitation of viable enterprises instead of liquidating them. Chapter Six is the overall conclusion of this thesis which explains the main ideas discussed and highlights the main contributions made by this study.

Aquaculture is being seriously considered as a promising sustainable industry in the Sultanate of Oman. Fish farming commenced in Oman in 1986, but it was only in 2011 that it became a more commercially driven sector. While worldwide aquaculture production is expected to rise to meet the shortage in capture fisheries, there is a parallel requirement to identify potential threats to the health and welfare of existing aquatic farmed stocks and to take appropriate steps to mitigate them. As aquaculture in Oman is in an early stage of development, it is important to acquire baseline data on the existence and prevalence of aquatic diseases and pathogens to help the Government make policy decisions to develop health management regimes applicable for Omani aquaculture. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate current farming practices of tilapia in Oman, to investigate the bacterial species composition and distribution from different sites in some of the economically important fish species, and to study the characteristics and pathogenicity of Aeromonas species. The current practices were studied for 9 Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) farms from four areas (Al Batinah, Ad Dhahirah, Ad Dakhiliyah and Ash Sharqiyah North) during the period of September to November 2012 by using questionnaires and interviews with the farm owners and staff. In total 417 fish representing 5 target species were chosen on the basis of the commercial importance and their potential for aquaculture in Oman, including red spot emperor (Lethrinus lentjan), king soldier bream (Argyrops spinifer), white spotted rabbit fish (Siganus canaliculatus), abalone (Haliotis mariae) and tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). The fish were collected from 5 main sampling areas in Oman (Muscat, Mudhaibi, Manah, Sohar and Salalah) based on the Atlas of suitable sites for aquaculture in Oman to investigate the bacterial species composition and distribution. The animals were examined for clinical signs of disease prior to routine bacteriology. Bacterial isolates were recovered using traditional methods and identified to species level using phenotypic and molecular approaches using 16S rDNA, 16S rDNA RFLP and 16S rDNA sequencing. Experimental fish challenge studies were also conducted using both live bacterial cells and ECP protein to investigate the pathogenicity of Aeromonas isolates. In addition, the presence of some virulence factors was investigated using both phenotypic and genotypic methods. The results of this study showed that, the most farms in the Oman follow very similar farming practices. The major proportion of the tilapia is consumed within the local communities. A number of farmers have experienced mortalities, which were considered to be attributable to poor water quality, overcrowding or due to excessive feeding. Farmers facing fish mortalities tended not to record the problems due to a lack of understanding of the concept of fish farm management. There is a regulation about aquaculture and related quality control, but it has not yet been implemented in an appropriate manner in Oman. From the diverse group of bacteria recovered from wild and farmed fish, 83% of the total isolates comprised Gram negative, rod-shaped bacteria. The most frequently isolated groups from marine and cultured fish were Aeromonas spp., Vibrio spp., Sphingobacterium spp., Micrococcus spp. and Staphylococcus spp., with Aeromonas spp. being the predominant group representing 25% of the isolates recovered in this study. Identification of the Aeromonas spp. showed 57% agreement between the results of phenotypic and genotypic methodologies, and determined 6 species as the dominant organisms, i.e. A. veronii, A. jandaei, A. caviae, A. trota, A. encheleia and A. salmonicida. 65% of the iso-lates shared 99% 16S rDNA sequence similarity with the closest sequences in GenBank, and the dominant species was A. veronii. In conclusion, the Aeromonas isolates recovered from fish with clinical signs of disease showed heterogeneity in their identification profiles and their pathogenicity.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is one of the most common genetic diseases worldwide. HbS polymerisation causes altered red blood cell (RBC) rheology and fragility, increase in blood viscosity with blockage of small blood vessels, and RBC membrane permeability changes. Excessive levels of cell-free Hb, high autoxidation of Hb, contribute to the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in SCD patients. In this work, oxidants showed direct and indirect effects on the main cation permeability pathways involved in dehydration of HbS/S RBCs - Psickle, the Gardos channel and the KCl cotransporter (KCC) - and thus on RBC volume causing polymersation. Psickle and Gardos channel activities showed significant correlation, consistent with the hypothesis that Ca2+ entry via Psickle causes activation of the Ca2+-dependent K+ channel. Treatment of SCD remains inadequate relying on the blood transfusion and supportive therapy depending on the organ affected. In the present study antioxidants and aromatic aldehydes showed some promising results towards future alternative treatments for SCD. Antioxidants showed inhibitory effects on the cation permeability pathways leading to inhibition of polymerisation and haemolysis and thus maintained RBC volume. Aromatic aldehydes interact with HbS and are usually given to increase oxygen affinity, thereby reducing its tendency to polymerise. GBT1118 had a marked inhibitory effect on all three cation permeability pathways. It reduced sickling, Psickle and Gardos activity. It inhibited KCC by affecting the regulatory protein phosphorylation cascade. It maintained RBC hydration, and stabilised RBCs. Historically Oman was the principal trading port of the Persian Gulf region, resulting in the complex mix of social and ethnic backgrounds. In 1989 a second mutation in the β chain of Hb, at position β121 was found in an Omani patient in addition to the usual HbS mutation at the β6 position, and termed HbS-Oman. At low percentage of HbS-Oman patients show severe SCD symptoms. Despite RBCs containing at most 25% HbS-Oman, there was high sickling percentage and K+ permeability showed many features similar to those seen in homozygous HbS/S patients. The presence of α thalassaemia was protective and represents an obvious potential prognostic marker for this rare SCD genotype. Overall, the present work contributes to elucidation of the pathogenesis of SCD, suggests approaches to the development of novel therapies and increases our understanding of a rare SCD genotype, HbS-Oman.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / This thesis is a story of Oman. It will lightly touch the rich fabric of Oman's history. It will chart through some of Oman's modernization as a cohesive Arab state into the new era under the reign of Sultan Qaboos bin Said. The thesis will emphasize Oman's potential as a young entrepreneur, and discuss the pathways and decisions made over the last two decades bringing Oman to the forefront of economic progress and social development while maintaining its cultural heritage. As Oman continues to look for revenue sources other than oil through industrialization, the thesis will focus on Oman's Fisheries industry and discuss the gradual depletion of its marine food resources--a consequence of over-fishing. The thesis will debate whether an aquaculture industry is the next step up from Oman's Fisheries sector and can Oman used the development of its aquaculture sector to increase its revenues. The analysis of an aquaculture sector for Oman will involve evaluating the economic, scientific, environmental and ecological factors dictating the success of entering this industry. It will focus on aquaculture of shrimp and the reasons why Oman would consider using this species to develop its aquaculture sector. The thesis will lay out various approaches to practicing sustainable aquaculture and focus on three potential options to develop the aquaculture sector. This section will canvass the critical factors that should drive the decision making process in selecting the optimal aquaculture approach that will yield Oman the revenue sources it seeks while minimizing any damage to the environment. The three choices are developed with an across the border measuring device with which Oman can evaluate the socio-economical and ecological pros and cons of selecting any of the three options. / 2031-01-02

An exploratory case study research design was followed to explore and categorize 23 pre-service physics teachers’ understanding in the fields of superconductivity and nanotechnology at the Sultan Qaboos University in Oman. To elicit their responses, a five-stage categorical framework analysis was used. The five stages included identification of the thematic framework, familiarization, coding, placing the categories on a chart and finally, interpretation. A conceptual survey test (Conceptual Survey of Superconductivity and Nanotechnology) was administered to the pre-service physics teachers to form four independently homogenous ability focus groups. This was followed by focus group discussions whose data were analyzed to group their conceptions in both the epistemological as well as ontological categories. From the focus group discussions, six categories were considered from previous studies, namely; lateral alternative conceptions, ontological conceptions, naïve physics, Ohm’s p-primes, mixed conceptions and loose ideas. Since this was a pre-instructional study, naïve physics ideas and lateral alternative conceptions were dominant. Naïve physics refers to the untrained student or human perception of various physical phenomena while lateral alternative conception refers the misconceptions individuals have on ideas that may be inconsistent with scientifically acceptable facts. Findings indicate that the pre-service teachers’ conceptions deviated from canonical scientific concepts, are diversified and inconsistent. The knowledge on pre-instructional conceptions will influence the development of evidence-based pedagogy, which is fundamental to the development of an effective physics education curriculum. / Institute for Science and Technology Education (ISTE) / M. Sc. (Physics Education)

This thesis uses early travel accounts (1838-1959), travelogues (1996-2001) and travel brochures (2001) to investigate the image of Oman and its people in British travel texts. Although there have been a number of imagery studies within the field of tourism over the last two decades, they have been recently criticised by Gallarza et al. (2002) for their lack of theoretical orientation. This thesis is intended to be a modest step in addressing this criticism by re-appraising Said's well known work on Orientalism (1978) and works that foreshadowed it, by testing their political, theoretical and polemical propositions against detailed evidence to be found in case study evidence derived from close analysis of English texts on one country; Oman. The thesis investigates the extent to which these texts confirm/disconfirm Said's predominantly critical evaluation of Western (particularly British and French) representations of the east through the construct he calls 'Orientalism'. Through exploration of the imagery attached to Oman, this analysis is intended to contribute to the wider "Othering" debate in suggesting how people of a developing country are defined and gendered by people from developed ones. The thesis, which is based on three genres of travel texts, suggests a much more complex picture of the mechanisms of representations than Said (1978) suggests, showing, for example, that each textual category (travel book, travelogue, and brochure) had its own distinguishing variations in terms of ideological perspective, mode of address and substantive content. For example, political and imperial discourses were widely present in early travel accounts, while, by contrast, travelogue and travel brochure data were more constituted by discourses of consumerism and commerce, with residual I'olitical and imperial traces either silenced, muted or reconstituted as forms of nostalgia, or a depoliticised, sometimes, aestheticised, historic heritage. Moreover, although some early accounts contain negative denotations and connotations relating to Oman and its people that would support Said's broadly critical deconstruction of "Orientalism" as an ideological mechanism of control and appropriation, all three media representations, historical travel texts included, were far from presenting a uniform, or even predominant construction of Oman and its people that would support Said's critique. In two contextual chapters, this thesis appraIses historical encounters between Omanis and Westerns with focus on the British and Omani relationship, and offers an overview ofthe development of tourism in Oman. On the methodological front, the study is unusual as an investigation that combines inductive with deductive approaches, quantitative content analysis with qualitative semiotic analysis. Content analysis was used to examine the images of Oman reproduced in the three media. The quantitative findings were analysed qualitatively by using semiotic analysis to explore and interpret the meanings behind the quantitative results.

It cannot be argued that according to the recent Omani law the accused has the right of access to a lawyer at any stage of the criminal proceedings. Nevertheless, it could be argued that the accused at some points may access a lawyer if he has one, otherwise the state is not obliged to offer him one under any circumstances and in any kind of crimes. There is no single rule stating that the accused must be represented by a lawyer even if he is facing capital punishment. Although the Omani law gives the accused the right to have the lawyer that he hired present with him during the investigation in general terms, there are no provisions to ensure that mechanisms are put in place which guarantee the effectiveness of such right. The Omani legislator has followed the approach upon which the presence of the lawyer is permissible, although this does not necessarily apply during the pre-trial stages in all cases. This research argues that, having no right of free access to a lawyer privileges those who are wealthier because such accused have the means to appoint a lawyer from the outset, a capacity that often evades the poorer accused. If the accused cannot afford a lawyer, the state should appoint one for him, grounded in the motivations of the state being concerned with achieving justice. The research addressed the question whether the Omani Law and particularly the Penal Procedures Code succeed in guaranteeing the accused right of access to a lawyer. Moreover, it considered whether the Omani law set the required procedures and safeguards to make all officials in charge of investigations and trials commit to respecting this right at all circumstances. These issues are considered by critically analysing the relevant Omani law and case law as well as looking at other legal frameworks, with special reference to the Egyptian System. This comparison has been provided in order to give a contextual base upon which the practicing of this right within the Omani Procedures Code can be critically analysed. This study found that there is a great deal of reform for the Omani legislator to urgently do in regard to the right of access to a lawyer during all criminal proceedings stages.

No description available.

Structural field observations, combined with petrological, isotopic and geochemical analysis of metamorphic and igneous rocks associated with the Semail ophiolite of Oman and the United Arab Emirates, have been used in conjunction with geochronology and estimates of metamorphic conditions and PT paths to constrain the ophiolite emplacement history. The ophiolite metamorphic sole was formed at peak conditions of 840 ± 70°C and 11.6 ± 1.6 kbar (THERMOCALC) and 840-870°C and 11.8-13.9 kbar (conventional thermobarometry) and is characterised by an anticlockwise PTt path. Further analysis and structural constraints imply an apparent inverted sole gradient of ~2°C m-1 and ~3.7 MPa m-1. In conjunction with existing geochronology, a peak sole exhumation rate of ~12.5 mm yr-1 is indicated. Geochemical analysis and tectonic constraints suggest that the Semail ophiolite sole formed from neo Tethyan MORB crust similar in composition to the preserved Triassic-Jurassic Haybi tholeiites and Masirah ophiolite crust. The Bani Hamid granulite facies sole metamorphism peaked at ~96.5 Ma and exhibits a similar PTt path and peak conditions, but formed from oceanic island igneous, volcanoclastic and sedimentary protoliths. Anatectic granitoids in the ophiolite mantle sequence have geochemical and isotopic (Rb-Sr and Sm-Nd) characteristics compatible with derivation from the Bani Hamid sole granulites during prograde metamorphism and have ages of 98.8 ± 9.5 Ma, 93.0 ± 10.0 Ma (Sm- Nd) and 105 ± 4 Ma (U-Pb). The Saih Hatat high pressure metamorphic terrane beneath the ophiolite consists of two contrasting structural levels juxtaposed during exhumation following the subduction of the Arabian continental margin beneath the advancing ophiolite. PT analysis shows the HP event culminated at 450-550°C and 20.0 ± 1.5 kbar (THERMOCALC) and was characterised by a clockwise PTt path. In conjunction with ambiguous existing geochronology, a peak exhumation rate of ~4-12 mm yr-1 is indicated, followed by erosion at ~0.5 mm yr-1.