University of Jordan

About: University of Jordan is a education organization based out in Amman, Jordan. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Health care. The organization has 7796 authors who have published 13764 publications receiving 213526 citations.

Wastes and biomass materials as sustainable-renewable energy resources for Jordan

Abstract: An assessment of biomass resources potential in Jordan for power/heat generation and biogas production is presented in this paper. The investigation is based on five crucial requirements toward process sustainability and production cost. These requirements include biomass analysis and availability, conversion technologies, optimizing efficiency, reduction of environmental impact, and political decisions. All of these requirements collectively work in synergy toward commercial implementation of bioconversion technologies of biomass into energy. The information obtained in this study is expected to be useful for both decentralized and centralized wastes based energy planning by policymakers and industry developers, which can increase the biomass based renewable energy share to the energy mix. Direct biomass resources including agricultural residues, animal manure and municipal solid waste are considered in the analysis. Jordan produces more than 5.83 MT of wastes and residues annually, where 42% of which are estimated as available sources for energy generation and biogas production. The corresponding annual biogas and power potential is 313.14 MCM and 847.39 GWh, respectively. The produced biogas could replace almost 23.64% of Jordan primary energy consumed in the year 2012 in the form of natural gas (656 toe). Amongst all wastes and residues, municipal solid waste generated in the middle region of Jordan has the highest potential for biogas and power generation at 24.26%. This is followed by poultry manure with 18.58% and olive residues with 15.1%. The potential of the other wastes and residues is estimated at 42.06%.

The beliefs that underlie autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching: A multinational investigation

Abstract: We investigated the role of three beliefs in predicting teachers’ motivating style toward students—namely, how effective, how normative, and how easy-to-implement autonomy-supportive and controlling teaching were each believed to be. We further examined national collectivism–individualism as a predictor of individual teachers’ motivating style and beliefs about motivating style, as we expected that a collectivistic perspective would tend teachers toward the controlling style and toward positive beliefs about that style. Participants were 815 full-time PreK-12 public school teachers from eight different nations that varied in collectivism–individualism. All three teacher beliefs explained independent and substantial variance in teachers’ self-described motivating styles. Believed effectiveness was a particularly strong predictor of self-described motivating style. Collectivism–individualism predicted which teachers were most likely to self-describe a controlling motivating style, and a mediation analysis showed that teachers in collectivistic nations self-described a controlling style because they believed it to be culturally normative classroom practice. These findings enhance the literature on the antecedents of teachers’ motivating styles by showing that teacher beliefs strongly predict motivating style, and that culture informs one of these beliefs—namely, normalcy.

Influence of Social Media Platforms on Public Health Protection Against the COVID-19 Pandemic via the Mediating Effects of Public Health Awareness and Behavioral Changes: Integrated Model.

Abstract: Background: Despite the growing body of literature examining social media in health contexts, including public health communication, promotion, and surveillance, limited insight has been provided into how the utility of social media may vary depending on the particular public health objectives governing an intervention. For example, the extent to which social media platforms contribute to enhancing public health awareness and prevention during epidemic disease transmission is currently unknown. Doubtlessly, coronavirus disease (COVID-19) represents a great challenge at the global level, aggressively affecting large cities and public gatherings and thereby having substantial impacts on many health care systems worldwide as a result of its rapid spread. Each country has its capacity and reacts according to its perception of threat, economy, health care policy, and the health care system structure. Furthermore, we noted a lack of research focusing on the role of social media campaigns in public health awareness and public protection against the COVID-19 pandemic in Jordan as a developing country. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of social media platforms on public health protection against the COVID-19 pandemic via public health awareness and public health behavioral changes as mediating factors in Jordan. Methods: A quantitative approach and several social media platforms were used to collect data via web questionnaires in Jordan, and a total of 2555 social media users were sampled. This study used structural equation modeling to analyze and verify the study variables. Results: The main findings revealed that the use of social media platforms had a significant positive influence on public health protection against COVID-19 as a pandemic. Public health awareness and public health behavioral changes significantly acted as partial mediators in this relationship. Therefore, a better understanding of the effects of the use of social media interventions on public health protection against COVID-19 while taking public health awareness and behavioral changes into account as mediators should be helpful when developing any health promotion strategy plan. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the use of social media platforms can positively influence awareness of public health behavioral changes and public protection against COVID-19. Public health authorities may use social media platforms as an effective tool to increase public health awareness through dissemination of brief messages to targeted populations. However, more research is needed to validate how social media channels can be used to improve health knowledge and adoption of healthy behaviors in a cross-cultural context.