The EFL Essay Writing Difficulties of Egyptian Student Teachers of English: Implications for Essay Writing Curriculum and Instruction

The current study is conducted with the aim of investigating the essay writing difficulties of Egyptian student teachers of English. More specifically, it attempts to fulfil the following three aims: explore the focuses of teaching essay writing at one of the pioneering faculties of education in Egypt; investigate the different essay writing practices used by Egyptian essay writing teachers from teachers as well as their students’ perspectives; and identify the essay writing difficulties encountered by Egyptian student teachers of English at the concerned faculty of education from both students and their teachers’ perspectives. The current study adopts an interpretive methodology that uses a sequential mixed methods approach to data collection and analysis. Therefore, I administered a questionnaire to 165 student teachers of English and 7 essay writing teachers, conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 14 student teachers of English and 7 essay writing teachers, and observed nine essay writing sessions of different teachers. Data is analysed quantitatively using SPSS descriptive statistics and qualitatively using exploratory content analysis. Findings of the current study reveal that there are eleven focuses of teaching essay writing at the concerned faculty of education. These focuses have been classified into four main categories: Mechanics/Language, Content, Structure/Layout and Practising Writing. Findings also shed light on the essay writing teachers’ practices in relation to planning, teaching, feedback and assessment. Finally, findings show that student teachers of English encounter the following difficulties in their essay writing: planning difficulties, organisational difficulties including coherence, cohesion, and stylistic difficulties, lexical problems, and technical difficulties including grammar, punctuation, spelling and revision and editing. According to the above mentioned findings, a theoretical writing model has been devised and a pedagogical process genre approach to teaching EFL essay writing in Egypt has been proposed. Implications for essay writing curriculum planning and instruction are also included. Finally, suggestions for further research are provided.The Egyptian Ministry of Higher Educatio

Simulation of turbocharged diesel engines under transient conditions

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T2D2: A Time Series Tester, Transformer, and Decomposer Framework for Outlier Detection

The automatic detection of outliers in time series datasets has captured much amount of attention in the data science community. It is not a simple task as the data may have several perspectives, such as sessional, trendy, or a combination of the two. Furthermore, to obtain a reliable and untrustworthy knowledge from the data, the data itself should be understandable. To cope with these challenges, in this paper, we introduce a new framework that can first test the stationarity and seasonality of dataset, then apply a set of Fourier transforms to get the Fourier sample frequencies, which can be used as a support of a decomposer component. The proposed framework, namely TTDD (Test, Transform, Decompose, and Detection), implements the decomposer component that split the dataset into three parts: trend, seasonal, and residual. Finally, the frequency difference detector compares the frequency of the test set to the frequency of the training set determining the periods of discrepancy in the frequency considering them as outlier periods

CHROMO-STEREOSCOPIC VISUALISATION FOR DYNAMIC MARINE OPERATIONS

Chromo stereoscopy (CS) is a simple and cost effective 3D system that can easily deliver geospatial information. CS has been used in several scientific data presentations, including remote sensing, physical modelling and hydrographic applications. In some of these applications the 3D effect was solely CS-related, while others integrated CS with other methods of implementing 3D. CS was mainly used in static visualisation, but no dynamic applications were found. Also, the restricted use of colour was acknowledged as a limitation for CS suggesting its unsuitability for applications where colour conventions are significant. This research focuses on CS for the marine applications and aims to (i) investigate users’ perception to CS effect and its interaction with other depth cues, (ii) assess the acceptance of the potential users to the changes in conventional colouring systems, (iii) and evaluate the usability and practicality of CS as an additional visualisation system in dynamic marine applications. To address these, visual scenarios were developed and expert human participants were recruited and interview for the evaluation. CS was well perceived among the participants. The interaction between different depth cues has advantages of increasing the depth perception and comprehending the 3D nature of the surrounding environment. For instance, from a certain view angle where two objects block each other, CS enhances the interposition effect, that indicates which object is in the front and gives a qualitative estimation of the spatial separation between them. Shading increases the realism of surface objects, and provides information for their undulation. It also dilutes the colours used in CS and increases the range of colours perceived and enhances the effect perceived from CS. The advantage of using the colour coding system to indicate distance is a valuable and original outcome of this thesis. This coding improved the participants understanding of the behaviour of moving objects (whether vessels coming closer or drifting apart) and enabled users to locate them in reference to the surrounding topography. Such knowledge is important to attain safer operations in a 3D environment. Accepting changes in colours in a visual presentation is linked to experience gained during interaction with the system, and the changes would be tolerated by the users in favour of improvements in situation awareness. Blind navigation and underwater operations are examples of where CS can be beneficial

Financing for Development, the Monterrey Consensus: Achievements and Prospects

The International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Monterrey, Mexico, in March 2002, marked the beginning of a new international approach to dealing with issues of development finance. It resulted from a unique process that broke new ground in bringing together all relevant stakeholders in a manner that was unprecedented in inclusiveness. Under the umbrella of the United Nations, all parties involved in the financing for development process contributed to creating a policy framework, the Monterrey Consensus of the International Conference on Financing for Development, to guide their respective future efforts to deal with issues of financing development at the national, regional, international, and systemic levels. This paper presents a summary of the major recommendations of the Monterrey Conference

PHYSIOLOGICAL AND MOLECULAR MARKERS FOR SALT TOLERANCE IN FOUR BARLEY CULTIVARS

The present investigation was carried out to detect physiological and molecular markers for salt tolerance in barley. Four cultivars of barley were screened for their tolerance against salt stress (9000 ppm). with respect to the performance of some physiological parameters such as germination percentage and abscisic acid (ABA) content and develop RAPD-PCR markers in barley linked to salt tolerance. The results of physiological analysis revealed a depression in germination percentages and an accumulation of abscisic acid (ABA) content in the stressed plants than those of the controls. The content of abscisic acid was much greater in the tolerant cultivars than in the sensitive ones. RAPD analysis was done utilizing six 10-mer random primers. The results showed the occurrence of some molecular genetic markers associated with salt tolerance. In conclusion, the physiological and molecular markers would be useful in screening different cultivars for their tolerance against salt stress during breeding programs of barley

A critical study of traditional themes in modern Egyptian drama.

There is a growing realization that drama, since it first appeared In the mid-nineteenth century in Arabic literature as an imported genre from the West, has come a long way to identify Itself with the past cultural tradition of the Arabs. The aim of this thesis is to examine the rise of traditional themes which over the years have come to constitute an important part of modern Egyptian drama. In order to explain this process and its manifold phases of development the study has been projected in eight chapters. The first two chapters provide the general background to this thesis. Firstly, I deal with the dramatic elements in the literary tradition to be found in the maqamat and shadow plays in the heritage of Arabic drama in Egypt. Secondly, I present a general view of Modern Arabic literature, during the revivalist movement that was motivated by political and national considerations. Against this setting, I have dealt with the appearance of drama and the pioneering efforts made to establish it on the firm ground of tradition as well as the reasons for doing so. This early phase reached its climax in the poetic drama of the important poet Ahmad Shawqi, whose contribution as a dramatist has been evaluated through a critical analysis of one of his best dramatic works. It emerges from this study that Shawqi represents the natural mid-way link between the early attempts and later phase of the full flowering of Arabic drama. In the fourth chapter I have focussed my attention on Tawfiq al-Hakim as the dominant figure in Arabic drama up to now. Three major plays have been examined thoroughly in order to trace the influence of the Areb-Islamic tradition upon his drama, and to stress the natural and artistic fusion of certain elements blended from two seemingly incompatible cultures: the Occidental and the Oriental. The fifth chapter is concerned with an evaluation of the changes that occurred in modern Arabic poetry in order to meet the needs of drama. This is followed by two chapters which trace the impact of tradition on the themes of Arabic verse drama. The first deals with the Sufi tradition as revealed in one of the plays of Salah Abd al-Sabur, a prominent poet of the new movement of Arabic poetry. The second shows how a traditional historical narrative serves the theme of rebellion in one of the plays of Abd al-Rahman al-Sharqawi, a writer with socialist affiliations. Finally, Chapter Eight provides a critical assessment of the works studied above, and a discussion of some of the major problems facing Arabic drama in Egypt today. To this has been added an Appendix containing the resolutions and recommendations of The Arabic Theatre Conference, held in Damascus in 1973, under the auspices of the Organization of Education, Culture and Sciences, of The Arab League

Optical Bistability In Nonlinear Kerr Dielectric And Ferroelectric Materials [QC1].

Kestabilan optiks dwi dan kestabilan optiks pelbagai di dalam hablur Kerr tak linear dikaji. Dua jenis sistem hablur penebat berion dipertimbangkan: bahan dielektrik biasa dan bahan ferroelektrik (FE) dengan struktur Perovskit. The optical bistability (OB) and multistability in Kerr nonlinear crystals are investigated. Two types of ionic insulating crystals are considered: a typical dielectric and a ferroelectric (FE)

Effects of selected additives on a luminous diffusion flame

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