The importance of teachers in integrating ICT into science teaching in intermediate schools in Saudi Arabia: a mixed methods study

Curriculum reform is central to the aspirations of many developing countries as they strive to deliver a quality education to their citizens. In Saudi Arabia, with its remarkable achievement of a high literacy rate in a few decades, the next step is bringing its resources to bear on providing a quality education so that Saudis may take their places in the global labour force. This study concerns the integration of information and communications technologies (ICT) into the science curriculum of intermediate schools for boys and girls in the educational district of Jeddah, and the training and development requirements of science teachers in this regard. A mixed methodology was employed to obtain qualitative data from six policymakers within the Ministry of Education in Riyadh and Jeddah, and quantitative data from a questionnaire for which 311 replies were received from intermediate schools’ science teachers in Jeddah. The findings confirm those reported in the literature that inefficient central project management and inadequate resources influence the integration of ICT in the science curriculum. Further, qualitative and quantitative findings confirm that teachers’ access to training is affected by time constraints, ineffective ICT course material, and in the specialised case of an Islamic country, inadequate access of women teachers to external training. However, this study does not support the majority of researchers which finds teachers’ negative attitude to ICT. Whilst the policy makers interviewed in this study perceived the teachers as having a negative attitude toward ICT integration in the science curriculum, quantitative data from the teachers pointed to a high interest (90 per cent) in ICT integration, and their willingness to pursue further professional development in the effective use of ICT in the intermediate science curriculum

Equating General Education Diploma Results of Physics Examination in the Sultanate of Oman Using Item Response Theory

هدفت الدراسة معادلة درجات امتحان دبلوم التعليم العام لمادة الفيزياء في سلطنة عمان باستخدام نظرية الاستجابة للمفردة، اشتملت عينة الدراسة جميع الطلبة الذين اجتازوا امتحان مادة الفيزياء للعامين الدراسيين (2014/2015م) و(2015/2016م) والبالغ عددهم 18966 و17175 على التوالي، وتمثلت أداة الدراسة في صورتين، حيث احتوت الصورة الأولى على 40 مفردة، و36 مفردة للصورة الثانية. وبعد ما تم التحقق من افتراضات نظرية الاستجابة للمفردة في البيانات تم تقدير معالم المفردات وقدرات المفحوصين حسب النموذج اللوجستي ثنائي المعلم، ومن ثم استخدمت طريقة المعادلة بالدرجات الحقيقية، حيث أظهرت نتائج المعادلة تقارب المتوسطات الحسابية للدرجات الحقيقية للصورة المرجعية والدرجات المعادلة للصورة الجديدة، وتم التحقق من دقة المعادلة بطريقة Bias)).The study aimed to equate General Education Diploma results of physics exam in the Sultanate of Oman using Item Response Theory (IRT) and setting them in a common scale. The study sample included all of the General Education Diploma students both male and female who passed the physics exam in the academic years 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 with atotal sample of (17175 & 18966) respectively. Two different copies of physics exam were used for the purpose of the study. The first one consisted of 40 items and the other was 36 items. The data was analyzed by Multilog 7.03 program, to estimate the parameters of the items and the abilities of examinees and to check the IRT hypotheses. Moreover, the method of True Score Equation was used. The Results showed that there are no statistically significant differences between the means of the true scores of the criteria exam and the results, which were equated to the new exam. The equation accuracy was checked by Equating Bias metho

Comparison of Postoperative Drain Insertion versus No Drain Insertion in Thyroidectomies : Retrospective case-control study from the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman

Objectives: A thyroidectomy is a frequently performed surgical procedure which can result in lifethreatening complications. The insertion of a drain after a thyroidectomy has been suggested to prevent such complications. This study aimed to evaluate the use of surgical drains following thyroidectomies in relation to postoperative complications and mass sizes. Methods: This retrospective case-control study included all thyroidectomies conducted at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman, from January 2011 to December 2013. Length of hospital stay, readmission, postoperative complications and mass size were evaluated. Results: During the study period, 250 surgeries were carried out on 241 patients. The majority of patients were female (87.2%). Drains were inserted postoperatively after 202 surgeries (80.8%) compared to 48 surgeries (19.2%) without drains. A total of 32 surgeries (12.8%) were conducted on patients with thyroid masses <1 cm, 138 (55.2%) on those with masses between 1–4 cm and 80 (32.0%) on those with masses >4 cm. The association between drain use and mass size was not significant (P = 0.439). Although postoperative complications were more prevalent in patients with drains, the relationship between these factors was not significant (P >0.050). Length of hospital stay was significantly longer among patients with postoperative drains (P <0.010). Conclusion: The routine insertion of drains after thyroid surgeries was found to result in longer hospital stays and did not reduce rates of postthyroidectomy complications. Thyroid mass size should not be used as an indicator for the insertion of a drain after thyroidectomy

Isolation and screening of Bacillus subtilis MJ01 for MEOR application: biosurfactant characterization, production optimization and wetting effect on carbonate surfaces

Abstract The bacterial strain MJ01 was isolated from stock tank water of one of the Iranian south oil field production facilities. The 16S rRNA gene of isolate, MJ01, showed 99% similarity to Bacillus subtilis. The results revealed that biosurfactant produced by this strain was lipopeptide-like surfactin based on FTIR analysis. Critical micelle concentration of produced surfactin in distilled water was 0.06 g/l. Wettability study showed that at zero salinity surfactin can change original oil-wet state to water-wet state, but in seawater salinity it cannot modify the wettability significantly. To utilize this biosurfactant in ex situ MEOR process, economical and reservoir engineering technical parameters were considered to introduce a new optimization strategy using the response surface methodology. Comparing the result of this optimization strategy with the previous optimization research works was shown that significant save in use of nutrients is possible by using this medium. Furthermore, using this method leads to less formation damage due to the incompatibility of injecting fluid and formation brine, and less formation damage due to the bioplugging

On a Laminated Timoshenko Beam with Nonlinear Structural Damping

In the present work, we study a one-dimensional laminated Timoshenko beam with a single nonlinear structural damping due to interfacial slip. We use the multiplier method and some properties of convex functions to establish an explicit and general decay result. Interestingly, the result is established without any additional internal or boundary damping term and without imposing any restrictive growth assumption on the nonlinear term, provided the wave speeds of the first equations of the system are equal

Comparison of Postoperative Drain Insertion versus No Drain Insertion in Thyroidectomies: Retrospective case-control study from the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman

Objectives: A thyroidectomy is a frequently performed surgical procedure which can result in lifethreatening complications. The insertion of a drain after a thyroidectomy has been suggested to prevent such complications. This study aimed to evaluate the use of surgical drains following thyroidectomies in relation to postoperative complications and mass sizes. Methods: This retrospective case-control study included all thyroidectomies conducted at the Sultan Qaboos University Hospital, Muscat, Oman, from January 2011 to December 2013. Length of hospital stay, readmission, postoperative complications and mass size were evaluated. Results: During the study period, 250 surgeries were carried out on 241 patients. The majority of patients were female (87.2%). Drains were inserted postoperatively after 202 surgeries (80.8%) compared to 48 surgeries (19.2%) without drains. A total of 32 surgeries (12.8%) were conducted on patients with thyroid masses 4 cm. The association between drain use and mass size was not significant (P = 0.439). Although postoperative complications were more prevalent in patients with drains, the relationship between these factors was not significant (P >0.050). Length of hospital stay was significantly longer among patients with postoperative drains (P <0.010). Conclusion: The routine insertion of drains after thyroid surgeries was found to result in longer hospital stays and did not reduce rates of postthyroidectomy complications. Thyroid mass size should not be used as an indicator for the insertion of a drain after thyroidectomy

Radiographic evaluation of dental age maturity in 3–17-years-old saudi children as an indicator of chronological age

Objective: This study was aimed to evaluate the dental age in Saudi children from panoramic radiographs using the Demirjian method to estimate their chronological age. Materials And Methods: This retrospective cross-sectional study consisted of 1902 panoramic radiographs of 955 boys and 947 girls between the ages of 3–17 years. All children were placed in the age group closest to their chronological age. The dental age was scored on all seven left mandibular teeth by calibrated examiners. Bivariate analyses using the t-test and Pearson correlation were performed. Results: There was significant difference in both boys and girls in all the age groups between their chronological age and dental age. Even though there was a slight overestimation in boys in some age groups and slight underestimation in girls in some groups, correlation analysis showed that there was a highly significant correlation between the chronological age and dental age for both boys (r2 = 0.96, P < 0.001) and girls (r2 = 0.98, P < 0.001). Moreover, correlation analyses for each age group showed a significant correlation between the chronological age and the dental age, using the Demirjian method, in most age groups (P < 0.01). When comparing the maturation score between boys and girls, the Student's t-test showed that there were no statistical differences between boys and girls in most age groups. Conclusion: Saudi boys and girls living in the western region of Saudi Arabia exhibited similar pattern of dental development when compared to the Demirjian method. Hence, the Demirjian method could be used as reference in children from the western region of Saudi Arabia