Classroom Simulation for Trainee Teachers Using 3D Virtual Environments and Simulated Smartbot Student Behaviours

his thesis consists of an analysis of a classroom simulation using a Second Life (SL) experiment that aims to investigate the teaching impact on smartbots (virtual students) from trainee teacher avatars with respect to interaction, simulated behaviour, and observed teaching roles. The classroom-based SL experiments’ motivation is to enable the trainee teacher to acquire the necessary skills and experience to manage a real classroom environment through simulations of a real classroom. This type of training, which is almost a replica of the real-world experience, gives the trainee teacher enough confidence to become an expert teacher. In this classroom simulation, six trainee teachers evaluated the SL teaching experience by survey using qualitative and quantitative methods that measured interaction, simulated behaviour, and safety. Additionally, six observers evaluated trainee teachers’ performance according to a set of teaching roles and roleplay approaches. The experiment scenario was set up between smartbots, trainee teacher avatars, and observer avatars in the virtual classroom, where smartbots are intelligent agents managing SL bots, and where groups are similar to one another but are under programming control.Saudi Embassy in Londo

Changes in Gene Expression Under Water Stress in the Flag Leaf and Seed Head During the Grain-Filling Stage of Two Spring Wheat Cultivars

Drought poses severe limitations on crop production. Therefore, drought tolerance mechanisms need to be better understood to select, modify and recommend certain cultivars of wheat. The grain filling stage of wheat development is particularly sensitive to water stress conditions. This research studied biological response to water stress under, well-watered (WW- 220 ml), moderate stress (MS- 110 ml), and severe stress (SS- 55 ml) conditions, with cultivars of soft white spring wheat (Alpowa and Idaho) during the early grain-filling stage of wheat development (Feekes 11.2) and under two duration of stress treatments (5, and 8 days), with a particular focus on the flag leaf and seed head. The flag leaf weights averaged across durations were 91%, 62% and 68%, 41% of well-watered under MS and SS in Alpowa and Idaho, respectively, compared with the well-watered control. The differential expressed genes were 2.32 and 3.9 fold more up and down-regulated genes in Alpowa compared to Idaho, respectively. Shared transcripts between stress intensities MS and SS constituted only 3 to 17% of the overall differentially expressed transcripts in both cultivars. Most of the top GO terms were predominantly down-regulated with a ratio of less than 1.0 under both stress intensities. The most abundant GO terms are related to transcriptional biological processes and to a lesser extent metabolic, transport, and translational activities. Seed head weights did not differ statistically among any of the water limitations treatments, cultivars, or durations. Idaho had 5.5 times the number of DE transcripts compared to Alpowa (338 in Alpowa, and 1843 in Idaho) with only 53 transcripts shared between the two cultivars in their response to water stress. The top GO terms for the biological process was predominantly down-regulated especially in Idaho under both conditions (MS and SS) while in Alpowa a moderate tendency towards down-regulation was detected. The top twenty up and down-regulated transcripts were examined for flag leaf and seed head.Crop Scienc

The Teaching Practices Level among the Secondary School Physics Teachers for the Second Grade in Light of the Scientific Inquiry Characteristics in Riyadh City

The study aims to uncover the teaching practice level among secondary school physics teachers for the second grade in Riyadh. The study used a descriptive survey to attain its goal. The study item was a notecard, and the sample included 61 female public school Physics teachers. The results revealed a lack of physics teachers' teaching practices in second-grade secondary school for scientific inquiry characteristics such as scientificoriented questions, formulating explanations from evidence, linking descriptions to scientific knowledge, and communicating and justifying explanations. Moreover, there were no statistically significant variations in physics teachers' teaching techniques based on years of experience, except for behaviors relating descriptions to scientific knowledge, favoring professors with 15 years or more of experience. Except for teaching practices linked to "communication and justification of explanations," there were statistically significant variations between physics teachers' teaching practices for variable training courses in scientific inquiry. As a result of these findings, the researcher proposes providing training and professional development programs for female instructors in scientific investigations and revising teacher preparation programs for male and female teachers

Evaluation and Enhancement of Public Cyber Security Awareness

With the spread of the Internet and the technology, Cyberspace has become the life of everyone, which requires them to be aware of the threats of it. Also, to be prepared with the speed of the technology, whether electronic payment, social life, leisure work IOT، and everything. However, in spite of increasing security practices there has been a rise in the cyber security threats and attacks. As the life is becoming more and more dependent on the technology, the need for cyber security awareness has become an important activity that need to be practiced in order to be safe and secure from the increasing cyber threats. Considering these factors, this thesis focuses on developing and implementing the two cyber security awareness games, mainly Password Protector and Malware Guardian. As cyber security is a vast area and requires various secure practices that need to be adopted the scope of the study is limited to password security and malware protection. Saudi Arabia is one of the fastest developing countries which has observed a tremendous increase in the use of internet and technology services and also the mobile devices for accessing various services. However, this adoption of technology is relatively new to the larger section, and the security practices that need to followed, may not be fully recognised by the population. Considering these developments, Saudi Arabia is used as the study location for implementing and evaluating the games. Initially a pilot study using a questionnaire based survey is conducted for understanding the level of cyber security awareness relating to the cyber security practices in Saudi Arabia. The results analysed from the study reflected poor understanding and awareness about password protection and malware concepts among the population. One of the interesting aspects identified from the pilot study is that most of the participants preferred mobile based application for generating cyber security awareness. Accordingly, two mobile games are developed. In order to evaluate the impact of the games, a pre-study test was carried out using an online survey questionnaire to record the understanding of passwords and malware among the participants. Then the mobile games Password Protector and Malware Guardian were distributed to the participants using the download link. The participants used the games for three weeks, and then undertook the same survey that was used before playing the game. The impact of the games is then analysed by comparing the changes in the awareness levels of the participants after using the games. The results from the study were found to be having positive impact as the awareness levels have increased significantly among the participants. Participants ability to create a strong and complex password has been improved significantly after playing the Password Protection game. Similarly, participants awareness levels about the malware threats and the safety measures that need to be taken such as backup, installing anti-malware software, updates etc. was improved significantly after using the Malware Guardian game. The overall findings were discussed, analysed and correlated with influencing factors and explained in this study. Accordingly, this study has found that the gamification can significantly enhance cyber security awareness

SDN-Based Detection of Self-Propagating Ransomware : The Case of BadRabbit

In the last decade, many ransomware attacks had the ability to spread within local networks or even outside them. At the same time, software defined networking (SDN) has provided a major boost to networks by transferring intelligence from network devices to a programmable logically centralised controller. The latter can be programmed to be compatible with the requirements of a wide range of networks and environments in a straightforward manner. This has motivated researchers to design SDN-based security solutions against threats targeting traditional networks and systems. This article investigates the use of SDN to detect and mitigate the risk of self-propagating ransomware. The infamous BadRabbit ransomware has been used for the proof of concept. To achieve this, an extensive analysis of BadRabbit was performed to identify its characteristics and understand its behaviour at both the infected device level and at the network level. As a result, several unique artifacts were extracted from BadRabbit, which could facilitate its detection. These artifacts were relied upon to design an SDN-based intrusion detection and prevention system. Our system comprises five modules, namely deep packet inspection, ARP scanning detection, packet header inspection, honeypot, and SMB checker. The first two modules have been inspired by other works and have been included for comparison with the existing solutions. Three other modules rely on novel SDN-based methods for ransomware detection. We have also evaluated the efficiency and the performance of our system in terms of detection time, CPU utilisation, as well as TCP and ping latency. Finally, the proposed approach has also been tested for other ransomware families, such as WannaCry and NotPetya. Our experimental results show that the system is effective in terms of detecting self-propagating ransomware and outperforms other proposed approache

Short Interval Infield Sarcoma Development following Resection of Glioblastoma and Adjuvant Radiotherapy and Temozolomide

Background. The development of 2 unassociated brain cancers in the same patient is a rare occurrence. Secondary cancers are generally thought to develop as an oncogenic consequence of the radiation therapy delivered to treat the primary cancers, always requiring a significant time interval between radiation treatment and secondary cancer development. Case Description. We report the development of an undifferentiated myxoid sarcoma only 13 months following radiation therapy for a glioblastoma. Conclusion. This case represents the shortest time interval reported between radiation therapy and secondary brain cancer development

Salix purpurea and Eleocharis obtusa Rhizospheres Harbor a Diverse Rhizospheric Bacterial Community Characterized by Hydrocarbons Degradation Potentials and Plant Growth-Promoting Properties

Phytoremediation, a method of phytomanagement using the plant holobiont to clean up polluted soils, is particularly effective for degrading organic pollutants. However, the respective contributions of host plants and their associated microbiota within the holobiont to the efficiency of phytoremediation is poorly understood. The identification of plant-associated bacteria capable of efficiently utilizing these compounds as a carbon source while stimulating plant-growth is a keystone for phytomanagement engineering. In this study, we sampled the rhizosphere and the surrounding bulk soil of Salixpurpurea and Eleocharis obusta from the site of a former petrochemical plant in Varennes, QC, Canada. Our objectives were to: (i) isolate and identify indigenous bacteria inhabiting these biotopes; (ii) assess the ability of isolated bacteria to utilize alkanes and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHS) as the sole carbon source, and (iii) determine the plant growth-promoting (PGP) potential of the isolates using five key traits. A total of 438 morphologically different bacterial isolates were obtained, purified, preserved and identified through PCR and 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Identified isolates represent 62 genera. Approximately, 32% of bacterial isolates were able to utilize all five different hydrocarbons compounds. Additionally, 5% of tested isolates belonging to genera Pseudomonas, Acinetobacter, Serratia, Klebsiella, Microbacterium, Bacillus and Stenotrophomonas possessed all five of the tested PGP functional traits. This culture collection of diverse, petroleum-hydrocarbon degrading bacteria, with multiple PGP traits, represents a valuable resource for future use in environmental bio- and phyto-technology applications