Mediational Role of Phonological Awareness Skills in Phonological Working Memory, IQ and Reading Ability among Kindergarten Children’s

The present study was designed to examine the relationship between phonological working memory, IQ and reading ability, through the mediation phonological awareness skills. Two hundred kindergarten children’s (100 boys & 100 girls; age ranged between 4 and 5 years) (M age =4.38), from 23 kindergartens attached to private schools in Muscat Governorate, Oman. The Phonological awareness skills was measured with “Phonological Awareness Test- Second Edition (PAT-2)” [34], the “Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP-2)” and phonological working memory [35]. The IQ was measured by Otis Lennon [36]. Mediational path analysis supported our hypothesized model. Result indicate that phonological working memory indirectly links to the reading ability of children, through phonological awareness skills, there was no direct effect of intelligence on phonological awareness, It was conclude that Memory, who have higher use more phonological awareness skills and their children show higher reading ability

Crow search algorithm with time varying flight length strategies for feature selection

Feature Selection (FS) is an efficient technique use to get rid of irrelevant, redundant and noisy attributes in high dimensional datasets while increasing the efficacy of machine learning classification. The CSA is a modest and efficient metaheuristic algorithm which has been used to overcome several FS issues. The flight length (fl) parameter in CSA governs crows\u27 search ability. In CSA, fl is set to a fixed value. As a result, the CSA is plagued by the problem of being hoodwinked in local minimum. This article suggests a remedy to this issue by bringing five new concepts of time dependent fl in CSA for feature selection methods including linearly decreasing flight length, sigmoid decreasing flight length, chaotic decreasing flight length, simulated annealing decreasing flight length, and logarithm decreasing flight length. The proposed approaches\u27 performance is assessed using 13 standard UCI datasets. The simulation result portrays that the suggested feature selection approaches overtake the original CSA, with the chaotic-CSA approach beating the original CSA and the other four proposed approaches for the FS task

An Approach Combining Simulation and Verification for SysML using SystemC and Uppaal

International audienceEnsuring the correction of heterogeneous and complex systems is an essential stage in the process of engineering systems.In this paper we propose a methodology to verify and validate complex systems specified with SysML language using a combination of the two techniques of simulation and verification. We translate SysML specifications into SystemC models to validate the designed systems by simulation, then we propose to verify the derived SystemC models by using the Uppaal model checker. A case study is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach

Aspect oriented programming: Concepts, characteristics and implementation

Programming techniques have been passed through many development stages in their progressing path to cope with the increasing complexity of systems requirements. So, one of the main goals of the programming languages designers is how to develop programming language that can handle and manage the spread and overlapping of different functionality concerns. Because unmanageable and uncontrollable scattering of concerns inside the system may cause many problems during system running in present or/and during applying maintenance and developing the system in future. One of the most recent and powerful solutions to overcome these problems is via using Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) approach. This research is demonstrates the features and the problems with implying AOP techniques in the software development process

Differential Item Functioning of Verbal Ability Test in Gulf Multiple Mental Ability Scale for GCC Students According to Gender and Country

هدفت الدراسة الكشف عن الأداء التفاضلي لمفردات اختبار القدرة اللفظية بالمستوى الثاني في مقياس جماس نحو الطالبات الإناث وطلبة سلطنة عمان، وذلك باستخدام طريقتي مانتل هانزل، والصعوبة المحوّلة. تكوّن الاختبار من 30 مفردة من نوع الاختيار من متعدد، بأربعة بدائل، وتكوّنت عينة الدراسة من بيانات أرشيفية لطلبة الصفين الثالث والرابع الابتدائيين في دول مجلس التعاون الخليجي، والبالغ عددهم 4280 طالبًا وطالبة. أشارت نتائج الدراسة أن طريقة مانتل هانزل كشفت أن 60% من مفردات الاختبار أظهرت أداءً تفاضليًا تبعًا لمتغير النوع الاجتماعي. بالمثل فإن 60% من مفردات هذا الاختبار أظهرت أداءً تفاضليًا تبعًا لمتغير الدولة. ويُعد هذا الأداء التفاضلي ضعيفًا في معظم المفردات حسب مؤشر D. وقد أظهرت نتائج طريقة الصعوبة المحوّلة وجود أداء تفاضلي بنسبة 30% تبعًا لمتغير النوع الاجتماعي و33.33% تبعًا لمتغير الدولة. أما فيما يتعلق بفحص الاتفاق بين طريقة مانتل هانزل وطريقة الصعوبة المحوّلة فكانت قيمة معامل ثبات التصنيف كابا 0.524 وبنسبة اتفاق 70% تبعًا لمتغير النوع الاجتماعي ويعتبر توافقًا متوسطًا؛ بينما كانت قيمة معامل ثبات التصنيف كابا 0.158 وبنسبة اتفاق 46.67% تبعًا لمتغير الدولة ويعتبر توافقًا ضعيفًا. وأوصت بدراسة الأسباب التي أدت إلى ظهور الأداء التفاضلي في مفردات اختبار القدرة اللفظية بالمستوى الثاني لمقياس جماس التي تم الكشف عنها لتجنبها ومعالجتها.The study aimed to investigate the differential item functioning (DIF) for verbal ability test items in the Gulf Multiple Mental Ability Scale for female students in general and Omani Female students in particular in using Mantel-Haenszel (MH) and the Transformed Item Difficulty (TID) methods. The test consisted of 30 multiple-choice items with four distactors. The study sample consisted of the archive data for 4280 students of the third and fourth grades in GCC countries. The results revealed that Sixty Pecent of the items showed DIF related to gender using MH. Similarly, Sixty Pecent of the items showed DIF related to country using MH. DIF values were small indicating weak DIF in most items. Results also indicated that DIF using TID was found for Thirty percent of the items related to gender, and 33.33% related to country. Furthermore, Kappa coefficient 0.524 was moderate between MH method and TID for gender and the agreement ratio was 70%. Kappa coefficient 0.158 was weak between MH method and TID for country and the agreement ratio was 46.67%. Based on the study results the reseachers recommend invistigating the reasons behind the detected differential functioning of some items in the verbal ability test at the second level of the GMMAS scale to avoid and address it

Calibrating PIRLS Test in Sultanate of Oman Using Item Response Theory

The study aimed to calibrate Oman data of the PIRLS test using the graded response model and to examine the psychometric properties of it, as well as identify the fit and unfit of its items. PIRLS2011 test booklets were used, which consisted of 146 test items (74 dichotomous and 72 polytomous). Items were divided into 13 booklets; each with two blocks (one literary and one informational). PIRLS test booklets were administered to 13 groups of fourth grade students in Sultanate of Oman with a total sample of 10394 students. Assumptions of IRT (unidimensionality and local independence) were examined and supported. Also, item fit was examined and supported using Samejima’s graded response model. The data was analyzed by Multilog7.03 program to estimate both item and ability parameters. Results indicated that the assumptions of IRT were proved. Also, IRT analysis revealed that 8 items showed unfit which represents only 5% of the test items. So, this result confirms that the test has good psychometric properties under the IRT

Prediction of Compressive Strength in High Strength Concrete with Steel Fiber Addition using Support Vector Machine Algorithm

In this study, a support vector machine model available in Weka Algorithms, was utilized to test the predictive capacity of compressive strength in high performance concrete (HSC) with steel fiber addition. To test the performance of the algorithm, a certain percentage were allocated for training of the algorithm, and the rest for test. This was done from 60-40 percent split up to 90-10 percent split for training and testing respectively. Results generated from the model include mean absolute error, root mean squared error, and relative absolute error for each model. It was observed that there was a good correlation between the actual and predicted values, and that errors were relatively low. Utilization of free algorithms in civil engineering construction will enhance the optimization of concrete mixtures. &nbsp

Rights of the buyer under The Sale of Goods in Shari‘ah and International Trade Law: a comparative analysis

The sale of goods is one of the most common transactions worldwide, practised by people to meet their various, ongoing, and daily needs. Consequently, buyers acquire certain rights against sellers, protected by applicable laws that may vary across jurisdictions. This paper aims to evaluate buyers’ rights under both Shari‘ah and international trade law. It examines these rights before and after the conclusion of a contract and then compares the two legal frameworks in this context. This research employs doctrinal and Islamic legal research methods, considering Shari‘ah and international trade law sources. Upon examination, it becomes evident that there are both similarities and differences between these two legal systems regarding the rights of buyers

Relationship between Social Anxiety and Parental Authority among College of Education Students’ at SQU

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between parental authority and social anxiety. The study attempted to answer the following question: Are there significant differences in social anxiety due to parental authority factors: (support, control, psychological control, emotion and accomplishment of missions)? Data was collected from 172 students of College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University. The Parental Authority Questionnaire (FAQ), and Social Anxiety Scale (SAS) were used to assess variables. To answer the study question, re- gression analysis was used. Findings indicated that there was significant relationship between parental authority and social anxiety in several domains. The findings also revealed that there were significant differences in social anxiety due to mother authority and student's gender

A Hybrid Feature Extraction Method With Regularized Extreme Learning Machine for Brain Tumor Classification

Brain cancer classification is an important step that depends on the physician's knowledge and experience. An automated tumor classification system is very essential to support radiologists and physicians to identify brain tumors. However, the accuracy of current systems needs to be improved for suitable treatments. In this paper, we propose a hybrid feature extraction method with a regularized extreme learning machine (RELM) for developing an accurate brain tumor classification approach. The approach starts by preprocessing the brain images by using a min–max normalization rule to enhance the contrast of brain edges and regions. Then, the brain tumor features are extracted based on a hybrid method of feature extraction. Finally, a RELM is used for classifying the type of brain tumor. To evaluate and compare the proposed approach, a set of experiments is conducted on a new public dataset of brain images. The experimental results proved that the approach is more effective compared with the existing state-of-the-art approaches, and the performance in terms of classification accuracy improved from 91.51% to 94.233% for the experiment of the random holdout technique