There are four kinds of Cedar: Cedrus libani naturally occurring in Lebanon, Syria and Turkey, Cedrus atlantica in Morocco and Algeria, Cedrus brevefolia in Cyprus Island and Cedrus deodara which is distributed in Himalayan Mountains. Wood essential oils obtained from C. libani, C. atlantica and C. deodara were tested for the inhibition of K562 cell proliferation and for the induction of erythroid differentiation. The wood essential oils of C. libani, C. atlantica and C. deodara inhibited the proliferation of the K562 cell line exhibiting IC₅₀ values 23.38 ± 1.7, 59.37 ± 2.6 and 37.09 ± 1.4 µg mL⁻¹, respectively. Meanwhile, C. libani wood oils induced a percentage of erythroid differentiation of 15 ± 2% at concentration 5 µg mL⁻¹. Cedrus deodara wood oil indicated a percentage of erythroid differentiation of 20 ± 2% at concentration 25 µg mL⁻¹ and C. atlantica wood oils showed a percentage of erythroid differentiation of 12 ± 1.8% at concentration 10 µg mL⁻¹.

The current study aims to explore the role of various macroeconomic factors in determining corporate investment. Using firm-level data of six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region countries for a 14 year period (2007–2020), the current study establishes the empirical analysis by employing the system generalized method of moments (GMM) technique. The empirical results reveal the negative impact of foreign direct investment whilst the positive impact of economic growth, financial development, and inflation rate on corporate investment decisions. Due to high market competition, foreign direct investment can hamper the growth of domestic industrial sectors. However, economic growth, financial development, and inflation rate positively drive the investment by enhancing the demand for industrial products, cheap financing, and price appreciation effect on production enrichment respectively. Based on results, it is suggested that corporate managers should consider the economic sensitivity of investment. The novelty of study can be listed, as the current analysis presents the dynamic role of various economic factors in determining the corporate investment decisions specifically in GCC region countries.

The present study translated and validated an Arabic version of the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire-R18 (TFEQ-R18), which assesses eating behaviour traits among Arabic speakers in the three domains: cognitive restraint (CR), uncontrolled eating (UE), and emotional eating (EE). Three bilingual experts first translated the English questionnaire into Arabic, and the questionnaire's comprehension was tested among 298 Arabic speakers. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) tested the model fit and flagged four items in the questionnaire with low consistency. These items were modified, and the revised Arabic version of TFEQ-R18 was validated in a population of 513 individuals. Validity was evaluated using CFA and Pearson's correlation coefficients, internal consistency using Cronbach's α, and the reproducibility of the questionnaire was confirmed with Bland-Altman analysis and T-test. The construct validity of the Arabic TFEQ-R18 was evaluated by comparing the response score in the population based on gender, BMI and age group. CFA confirmed that the model fit is good and strongly agrees with the collected data. Except for item 15 in the CR domain, all questions showed moderate to high correlation within their respective domains. The Cronbach's α for UE, EE, and CR domains recorded was 0.778, 0.784 and 0.588, respectively. Item 15 had the lowest consistency in the Arabic-TFEQ-R18, and Cronbach's α increased to 0.608 with its removal. There was no significant difference between the first and second attempts of the Arabic TFEQ-R18, indicating good test-retest reliability. Moreover, UE and EE were positively correlated to the BMI of the participants (r = 0.159, p = 0·000; r = 0.158, p = 0·000, respectively). The study concludes that the Arabic TFEQ is a valid and reliable tool for studying the three psychometric domains of UE, EE and CR among Arabic speakers.

Purpose: This study investigates the impact of senior management’s financial intelligence on the financialperformance of banks and insurance companies operating in the Gaza Strip. Design: The study followed the descriptive analytical approach to measure financial performance by relying on the financial reports of the sample companies for 2022. Two primary sources were employed: a questionnaire to collect the financial intelligence data, and it was distributed to a sample of individuals representing the management of companies operating in the Gaza Strip. A total of (67) completed questionnaires were obtained. In addition, secondary data from 11 banks and insurance companies operating in the Gaza Strip was collected to compute the financial performance variables such as returns on investment (ROI), assets (ROA), and equity (ROE). The collected data were then analyzed using SPSS software version 28. Findings: The results indicated that the dimensions of financial intelligence were available. Banks and insurance companies have good financial performance. Furthermore, financial intelligence (understanding beyond the numbers, understanding financial analysis, and grasping the overall financial picture) significantly affected the performance of banks and insurance companies, as measured by ROI and ROA. The dimensions of financial intelligence (mastering financial and monetary skills, understanding financial analysis, and grasping the overall financial picture) also significantly impacted the performance of banks and insurance companies as measured by ROE. Simultaneously, there was no significant effect of financial intelligence (mastering financial and monetary skills) on the performance of banks and insurance companies as measured by ROI and ROA. Furthermore, there was no significant effect of financial intelligence (understanding beyond the numbers) on the performance of banks and insurance companies as measured by ROE. Originality: To the best of the author’s knowledge, the current study is among the first research efforts in Palestine. Practical implications: The findings indicate that senior management should pay greater attention to developing financial intelligence skills among employees in supervisory positions, especially those in the administrative, financial, and planning fields, due to their impact on improving companies’ performance.

Time series of quarterly observations on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is collected and used in this study. Forecasting results of ANNs are compared with those of the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and regression as benchmark methods. Using Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), the empirical results show that ANN performs better than the traditional methods in forecasting GDP.