American University in Cairo

About: American University in Cairo is a education organization based out in Cairo, Egypt. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Context (language use). The organization has 2472 authors who have published 5339 publications receiving 73741 citations.

“Issue-based decision support systems for the Egyptian cabinet

Abstract: This paper provides a new approach for managing the design and delivery of information and decision support systems for strategic decision making. It draws on experiences gained from implementing systems and services for enhancing the strategic decision-making process of the Cabinet of Egypt. The article challenges the conventional views of conceptualizing decision support systems and methods for managing them. It introduces an "issue-based" management method for the design and delivery processes. The distinctive features of this approach include a focus on issues rather than decisions, a distinction between information support services and decision support services, prototyping the management of delivery as well as design, and a dynamic tracking back-end. Finally, the article compares the conventional and issue-based DSS approaches. Such a comparison suggests that the issue-based approach can be an effective stepping stone for the design and delivery of executive information systems (EIS) in corporate contexts by providing DSS that are "EIS-ready."

Anxiety and depression in a post-September 11 sample of Arabs in the USA

Abstract: Scant research has examined the mental health of Arab Americans. This study aimed to determine the levels of anxiety and depression in a sample of Arab Americans and compare the rates to normative community samples and samples of other minority ethnic/racial groups. A non-probability sampling approach resulted in 601 adult Arab American respondents from 35 US states. Respondents completed anxiety and depression questionnaires at a form-based Internet site. One-fourth of participants reported moderate to severe anxiety levels as measured by the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and one-half reported depression scores that met clinical caseness as assessed by the Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression Scale (CES-D). The present sample of Arab Americans reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression compared to standardization samples and community samples of four other minority groups. Arab Americans may be at risk for anxiety and depression. Further studies should be conducted to replicate and validate these results, identify stressors that affect this population, and develop recommendations for clinical interventions.