Survey on Data-Centric based Routing Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

The great concern for energy that grew with the technological advances in the field of networks and especially in sensor network has triggered various approaches and protocols that relate to sensor networks. In this context, the routing protocols were of great interest. The aim of the present paper is to discuss routing protocols for sensor networks. This paper will focus mainly on the discussion of the data-centric approach (COUGAR, rumor, SPIN, flooding and Gossiping), while shedding light on the other approaches occasionally. The functions of the nodes will be discussed as well. The methodology selected for this paper is based on a close description and discussion of the protocol. As a conclusion, open research questions and limitations are proposed to the reader at the end of this paper

Lexical collocations in Arabic-English bilinguals\u27 writing across two proficiency levels

This chapter describes an investigation into the use of adjective+noun, verb+noun and noun+noun lexical collocations in a sample of texts from the Zayed Arabic-English Bilingual Undergraduate Corpus (ZAEBUC) (Palfreyman & Habash, 2021): one English and one Arabic text each by 20 undergraduate writers, rated at the B1 and B2 levels of the Common European Framework of References for languages (CEFR). It focuses on two of the most widely measured dimensions of collocational competence – frequency and exclusivity – using statistical data from two large online reference corpora. The chapter first discusses previous research findings in students’ collocational use as identified in other learner corpora, before describing the research methods and procedures used to identify and extract the collocations. It then goes on to present the main findings and makes comparisons both between languages and between the two different CEFR levels within each language. It also presents lists of the top 10 most frequent and most exclusive collocations from the texts that appear across all student writing within both the Arabic and English ZAEBUC sub corpora

Laparoscopic Bladder -Conserving Surgery: Case Series

Introduction: Advanced laparoscopic intracorporeal suturing skills and the availability of laparoscopic vascular instruments have enabled organ-conserving surgeries as an alternative option for select patients. This intervention optimizes the advantages of minimal access surgery, upholds quality of life, improves patient’s body image and preserves function. Methods: We present our experience in this series of three patients with bladder tumours who underwent laparoscopic bladder-conserving surgery at Grey’s Hospital.Results: Patients’ mean age was 51 years. The mean tumor size was 6.0cm. All the procedures were completed laparoscopically without open conversion. There were no significant intraoperative and post-operative complications. All resectionshad negative margins. Conclusion: Laparoscopic surgery in organ-preservation is critical, viable and safe in select patients attending Grey’s Hospital. It offers reduced morbidity, nerve preservation for potency and maintains bladder function.Key Words: Bladder tumour, Minimal access surgery, Laparoscopic bladder-sparing surger

Themes of Critical Feminist Cultural Speech of Fatima Mernissi

This study deals with thecritical feminist cultural discourse by Moroccan feminist writer Fatima Mernissi (1940- 2015). The study focused on three concepts: cultural critique and feminist critique. The second topic dealt with cultural content in her speech through some of her works are related to the subject of the study. The last topic deals with the forms of women\u27s cultural discourse at Mernissi: Harem speech, Hijab speech, power speech and masculine hegemony. It can be said that this study reveals the nature of critical thinking at Mernissi in dealing with social and cultural issues in general and women in particular. It shows how to deal with Arab cultural specificity, especially in the context of Islamic societies, in addition to the current status of women in the arbitrary practices that these communities have been subjected to

PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF THE BARRIERS TO ‎ICT ‎INTEGRATION IN THEIR FUTURE INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICE IN A GULF STATE

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to assess pre-service teachers‟ confidence with technological pedagogical knowledge, their attitude toward ICT integration in education, intention to integrate ICT in their future career, and their evaluation of their teacher education program in terms of preparing pre-service teachers to utilize ICT in their future instructional practice. Furthermore, this study explores the relationship between TPK confidence, and the attitude toward and intent to integrate ICT among pre-service teachers. A quantitative method was employed to gather data from pre-service teachers at their senior year at their College of Education during the academic year 2014/2015. The evidence was then analyzed based on the original research questions. The study findings show that approximately half of the participants had neither the confidence nor the intention to utilize ICT in their future instructional practice. However, the majority of them also had positive attitudes toward ICT. The results show that there is a significant relationship between confidence and intention, with participants with less confidence about ICT skills in their instructional practice having no intention to utilize it in their future instructional practice. In addition, a significant relationship was evident between attitudes and confidence as participants believe that the use of ICT in teaching leads to better student learning outcomes. Evidence is mixed as to whether teacher education programs have a positive role in pre-service teachers‟ preparedness to use ICT in their future instructional practice. The research, therefore, suggests the need for effort on the part of both faculty members and policy makers to improve the teacher education program in the area of technology integration

Prevalence of Celiac Disease in Omani Children with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus: A Cross Sectional Study

Objective: Published studies on the prevalence of celiac disease in type 1 diabetes mellitus from the Arab World are scant. We aim to report the prevalence of celiac disease in Omani children with type 1 diabetes mellitus.Methods: Children with type 1 diabetes mellitus were prospectively screened for celiac disease, at Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman over a period of one year (June 2011 - May 2012). Serum anti tissue transglutaminase IgA, endomysial IgA antibodies and total IgA were measured for screening of celiac disease. Children with positive anti-tissue transglutaminase and/or endomysial IgA antibodies underwent endoscopy.Results: A total of 103 children with type 1 diabetes mellitus were initially included. Ten patients were lost to follow up. Ninety-three patients aged 2-17 years underwent screening for celiac disease. Sixteen patients had positive anti-tissue transglutaminase (17%). Fourteen patients underwent endoscopy with duodenal biopsies, while two were lost to follow-up. Five patients with positive anti-tissue transglutaminase had intestinal biopsy proven celiac disease. The prevalence of celiac disease is 5.5% in our cohort of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus.Conclusions: The prevalence of celiac disease in Omani children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus is similar to the World’s reported prevalence, but is less than that reported for Middle Eastern Arab children. To our knowledge, this is the first reported study on the prevalence of celiac disease in Omani children with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Performance analysis of black hole and worm hole attacks in MANETs

A Mobile Ad Hoc Network MANET is composed of a freely and mobility set of mobile nodes. They form a temporary dynamic wireless network without any infrastructure. Since the nodes act as both host and router in their communication, they act as a router provide connectivity by forwarding data packets among intermediate nodes to the destination. The routing protocol is used to grove their communication and connectivity as example, the Ad On-demand distance vector (AODV) routing protocol. However, due to the lack of security vulnerabilities of routing protocols and the absence of infrastructure, MANET is vulnerable to various security threats and attacks. This paper examines the impact of two types of attacks on AODV routing protocol using Network Simulator version 2 (NS2) environment. These attacks are Blackhole and Wormhole Attacks. The aim of both of them is to prevent data packets to reach the destination node and dropping all the traffic.

Ensemble divide and conquer approach to solve the rating scores’ deviation in recommendation system

The rating matrix of a personalized recommendation system contains a high percentage of unknown rating scores which lowers the quality of the prediction. Besides, during data streaming into memory, some rating scores are misplaced from its appropriate cell in the rating matrix which also decrease the quality of the prediction. The singular value decomposition algorithm predicts the unknown rating scores based on the relation between the implicit feedback of both users and items, but exploiting neither the user similarity nor item similarity which leads to low accuracy predictions. There are several factorization methods used in improving the prediction performance of the collaborative filtering technique such as baseline, matrix factorization, neighbour-base. However, the prediction performance of the collaborative filtering using factorization methods is still low while baseline and neighbours-base have limitations in terms of over fitting. Therefore, this paper proposes Ensemble Divide and Conquer (EDC) approach for solving 2 main problems which are the data sparsity and the rating scores’ deviation (misplace). The EDC approach is founded by the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) algorithm which extracts the relationship between the latent feedback of users and the latent feedback of the items. Furthermore, this paper addresses the scale of rating scores as a sub problem which effect on the rank approximation among the users’ features. The latent feedback of the users and items are also SVD factors. The results using the EDC approach are more accurate than collaborative filtering and existing methods of matrix factorization namely SVD, baseline, matrix factorization and neighbours-base. This indicates the significance of the latent feedback of both users and items against the different factorization features in improving the prediction accuracy of the collaborative filtering technique

Changing Survival Rate of Infants Born Before 26 Gestational Weeks : Single-centre study

 Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the changing survival rate and morbidities among infants born before 26 gestational weeks at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH) in Muscat, Oman. Methods: This retrospective study assessed the mortality and morbidities of all premature infants born alive at 23–26 gestational weeks at SQUH between June 2006 and May 2013. Infants referred to SQUH within 72 hours of birth during this period were also included. Electronic records were reviewed for gestational age, gender, birth weight, maternal age, mode and place of delivery, antenatal steroid administration, morbidity and outcome. The survival rate was calculated and findings were then compared with those of a previous study conducted in the same hospital from 1991 to 1998. Rates of major morbidities were also calculated. Results: A total of 81 infants between 23–26 gestational weeks were admitted to the neonatal unit during the study period. Of these, 58.0% were male and 42.0% were female. Median gestational age was 25 weeks and mean birth weight was 770 ± 150 g. Of the 81 infants, 49 survived. The overall survival rate was 60.5% compared to 41% reported in the previous study. Respiratory distress syndrome (100.0%), retinopathy of prematurity (51.9%), bronchopulmonary dysplasia (34.6%), intraventricular haemorrhage (30.9%) and patent ductus arteriosus (28.4%) were the most common morbidities. Conclusion: The overall survival rate of infants between 23–26 gestational weeks during the study period had significantly improved in comparison to that found at the same hospital from 1991 to 1998. There is a need for the long-term neurodevelopmental follow-up of premature infants

Analysis and verification of leakage inductance calculation in DAB converters based on high-frequency toroidal transformers under different design scenarios

High-frequency transformers are becoming an essential component in the integration of power resources that rely on power electronic converters; their efficiency and performance are influenced by parasitic characteristics in the interface. In this article, the design of a high-frequency toroidal transformer has been explained in detail using the ANSYS Maxwell platform. Various parameters, such as leakage inductance, magnetic flux density, magnetic field strength and uniform magnetic flux line are analyzed using Finite element analysis. High-frequency transformers using a toroidal core with different winding configurations are examined and all parameters obtained through simulation are validated by an analytical approach. Analysis of each design is based on its leakage inductances, which will aid in the appropriate selection of transformers as a function of their operating frequency. This analysis is expected to guide designers to optimize the high-frequency transformer parameters based on practical applications. The optimized parameters are then applied for a dual active bridge (DAB) converter within MATLAB/Simulink to verify the design process. A prototype has been built to validate the simulation and design procedure. The results obtained from both simulation and experiments are compared and show great correlation