Educating prospective science teachers in Oman : evaluating initial training programmes

This study has investigated the effectiveness of an initial teacher training programme provided by the Omani Colleges of Education in preparing science teachers. To understand the phenomena of this research, to give a picture as clear as possible of the topic under study and to determine the information that needs to be collected, a framework was established. A combination of qualitative and quantitative tools (questionnaires, interviews and document examination) was used to meet the aims of this study. The questionnaires and interviews were designed and tailored to relate specifically to the teachers' competencies that are required by the Omani Reformed General Education (the Basic Education: Stage Two). In addition, the importance and effectiveness of the programme's components were also investigated. The questionnaires were conducted with all the student science teachers in the final academic year, 2000/2001, and all the teacher educators in the departments of educational studies in all the six Omani Colleges of Education. Sub-samples of student teachers and teacher educators were interviewed. In addition, some newly qualified teachers were also interviewed. To carry out a careful analysis, a framework of data analysis was developed. The results are divided into three main sections. The first section addresses student teachers' competencies. The second section reports the participants' evaluation of the importance and effectiveness of the pedagogical courses. The third section covers the respondents' evaluation of the importance and the effectiveness of practicum aspects. In addition, results that emerged from the two last open-ended questions in the questionnaires and interviews and the effects of some variables on student teachers' competencies are presented. This study has indicated that while student science teachers demonstrated their ability in some competencies, they were deficient in the majority. In general, the results have indicated that approximately 86.96% of the competencies were rated to be average whereas only 10.87% of these competencies were viewed to be above average (i.e. competent). In addition, the majority of responses indicated that student teachers could use some experiential learning methods and some different assessment tools to a limited extent but not effectively. Furthermore, student science teachers are not fully prepared to use a problem-solving approach and ICT in teaching science. This research has produced interesting and useful data about the student teachers' competencies and the curriculum of the colleges and the manner in which it was implemented. It has not only shown a serious gap between the actual needs of science teachers (importance) and their preparation (effectiveness) by the colleges but identified also the areas of weakness. Some factors affecting the acquisition of the student teachers' competencies are addressed. Recommendations have been made for the Ministry of Higher Education for the development of the existing science teacher education programmes, and for the Ministry of Education (in-service teacher training). Issues for further research are also addresse

Experimental set-up for investigation of fault diagnosis of a centrifugal pump

Centrifugal pumps are complex machines which can experience different types of fault. Condition monitoring can be used in centrifugal pump fault detection through vibration analysis for mechanical and hydraulic forces. Vibration analysis methods have the potential to be combined with artificial intelligence systems where an automatic diagnostic method can be approached. An automatic fault diagnosis approach could be a good option to minimize human error and to provide a precise machine fault classification. This work aims to introduce an approach to centrifugal pump fault diagnosis based on artificial intelligence and genetic algorithm systems. An overview of the future works, research methodology and proposed experimental setup is presented and discussed. The expected results and outcomes based on the experimental work are illustrated

Evaluation of the Practicum at College of Arts and Sciences - University of Nizwa

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the practicum at University of Nizwa. The study identified the necessary skills that were acquired by student-teachers attributed through the practicum. It also aimed to identify whether there were significant differences in the evaluation of practicum due to the variable of program. The instrument used in the study consisted of 66 items. The samples of the study consisted of (48) student-teachers who were enrolled in the practicum at the college of arts and science at the University of Nizwa during the academic year 2014/2015. The results revealed that the level of evaluation of practicum was high and positive in general. Flaming of teaching, classroom management, then evaluation and feedback domains were the highest

Anomaly-based network intrusion detection enhancement by prediction threshold adaptation of binary classification models

Network traffic exhibits a high level of variability over short periods of time. This variability impacts negatively on the performance (accuracy) of anomaly-based network Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) that are built using predictive models in a batch-learning setup. This thesis investigates how adapting the discriminating threshold of model predictions, specifically to the evaluated traffic, improves the detection rates of these Intrusion Detection models. Specifically, this thesis studied the adaptability features of three well known Machine Learning algorithms: C5.0, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine. The ability of these algorithms to adapt their prediction thresholds was assessed and analysed under different scenarios that simulated real world settings using the prospective sampling approach. A new dataset (STA2018) was generated for this thesis and used for the analysis. This thesis has demonstrated empirically the importance of threshold adaptation in improving the accuracy of detection models when training and evaluation (test) traffic have different statistical properties. Further investigation was undertaken to analyse the effects of feature selection and data balancing processes on a model’s accuracy when evaluation traffic with different significant features were used. The effects of threshold adaptation on reducing the accuracy degradation of these models was statistically analysed. The results showed that, of the three compared algorithms, Random Forest was the most adaptable and had the highest detection rates. This thesis then extended the analysis to apply threshold adaptation on sampled traffic subsets, by using different sample sizes, sampling strategies and label error rates. This investigation showed the robustness of the Random Forest algorithm in identifying the best threshold. The Random Forest algorithm only needed a sample that was 0.05% of the original evaluation traffic to identify a discriminating threshold with an overall accuracy rate of nearly 90% of the optimal threshold."This research was supported and funded by the Government of the Sultanate of Oman represented by the Ministry of Higher Education and the Sultan Qaboos University." -- p. i

A Novel Splice-site Allelic Variant is Responsible for Wilson Disease in an Omani Family

Objectives: The objective of this study was to characterise Wilson's Disease (WD) [OMIM 277900] genetically and test for allelic variants in the copper transport gene (ATPase, Cu++ transporting, beta polypeptide, ATP7B) responsible for the disease in an Omani family. Methods: Three index patients from an Omani family had been previously diagnosed with WD. All three patients suffered neurological symptoms and signs. Forty-six relatives in the family were screened for WD. Eleven more individuals were positive, but asymptomatic. Results: Thirteen non-disease-causing allelic gene variants, described previously, were identified in the ATP7B gene from 46 family members. A putative novel disease-causing splice-site variant (c.2866-2A>G), which has not been reported previously, was detected in this family. It is located upstream of exon 13 which encodes part of transmembrane copper channel (Ch/Tm6). Reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction was used to amplify a complementary DNA (cDNA) fragment containing exons 12, 13 and 14. Exon 13 was entirely skipped from the transcript which probably would result in a defective ATP7B protein. Conclusion: A new ATP7B splice-site allelic variant, found among the 14 WD patients segregated with the disease in a recessive manner, suggests it is a disease-causing variant

A Study on FTIR, Antimicrobial, Antioxidant and Hypogycaemic Effect of Diospyros Kaki and Citrullus colocynthis

Phytochemical, FTIR screening, Hypoglycemic study, antibacterial, antifungal and antioxidant activity of Citrullus colocynthis and D. kaki fruit were studied. The interest of this study is to evaluate traditional herbal usage to treat many diseases around the sultanate of Oman locally. The functional groups that they contain are (O-H) Phenol, (C-H) Alkyl, (N-H) Amine and (C=C) Alkenyl groups corresponds to their biological phytoconstituents responsible for the medicinal properties. The antibacterial and antifungal activities revealed that all parts of tested samples shown good antimicrobial properties. While leaf of C. colocynthis methanolic extract showed highest zone of inhibition (24.33 mm³) against penicillium. Antioxidant assays were evaluated through DPPH (1, 1- diphenyl-2-picryllhydrazyi) and H2O2 (Hydrogen peroxide scavenging capacity) methods. Peel of D. kaki extract showed higher antioxidant activities than other parts. Antioxidant property of these fruit is due to the presence of significant amount of tannins, phenolic acids and flavonoids on them. A slight change in body weight was observed in all mice compared to the control. All extracts except leaf of C. colocynthis show significant reduction in blood glucose level even more than the positive control which treated with metformin drug. From our investigation of screening different parts of two plants, the results obtained confirm the therapeutic value of both plants used in traditional medicine

Mode i stress intensity factors of slanted cracks

The solutions of stress intensity factors of slanted cracks in plain strain plate are hard to find in open literature. There are some previous solutions of stress intensity factors available, however they are not studied completed except for the case of plain stress. The slanted cracks are modelled numerically using ANSYS finite element program. There are ten slanted angles and seven relative crack depths are used and the plate containing cracks is assumed to fulfil the plain strain condition. The plate is then forced uni-axially the stress intensity factors are determined according to the displacement extrapolation method. Based on the numerical analysis, it is found that slanted angles have inverse effects on the behaviour of stress intensity factors. Increasing such angles capable to reduce the mode I stress intensity factors. On the other hand, it is also enhanced the capability of mode II stress intensity factors at the crack tip. Due to difficulty of determining stress intensity factors numerically, a regression technique is used to formulate mathematical expressions which are capable to predict the stress intensity factors in reasonable accuracies