Backtracking assessment of IT and engineering courses

© 2019 WIETE. Measuring student learning outcomes in IT and engineering courses is required to improve course quality. Course outcomes are measured based on the results of student engagement in various course activities, assessments and questionnaires. In this article, the authors present a case study on measuring the outcomes of a programming course, based on student achievements in 13 IT courses, for which the programming course is a prerequisite, i.e. it provides fundamentalrequired skills. First, the learning outcomes of each course were mapped to the learning outcomes of the programmingcourse. Second, the student achievements of the learning outcomes of each course based on student gradesin course assessments were calculated. Finally, the calculations obtained from each course were used to calculate thestudent achievements of the learning outcomes of the programming course, based on the mapping from the first step. The results provided insights regarding student achievement of the programming course outcomes. This research wasconducted on data collected from IT courses, but the results are applicable to other disciplines

Experimental Study About Effect Iron Slag on The Shear Strength of Reinforced Concrete Beams Without Shear Reinforcement

In the last decades, researchers have become more interested in the environmental aspect of investing materials harmful to the environment in various aspects of life, including construction. Slag is considered as one of the industrial wastes that are harmful to the environment. There are many studies on the use of slag as a substitute for building materials because it adds an excellent property to concrete. In this study, the iron slag was used as a partial replacement of coarse aggregate and fine aggregate in different proportions, the study conducts to know its effects on the shear strength of reinforced concrete beams. Ten R.C. beams without shear reinforcement (1100×100×200) mm were studied using iron slag as a coarse aggregate with a ratio of 10%, 20%, 30% and 40%, as a fine aggregate with a ratio of 10%, 20% and 30%, and partial substitute for coarse aggregate by 7.5% and partial substitute for fine aggregate by 7.5% in the same model, finally, partial substitute for coarse aggregate by 15% and partial substitute for fine aggregate by 15% in the same model. According to the test results, it was found that the optimal proportion of replacing slag with coarse aggregate is 20%, which resulted in a 24.58% increase in peak load. While the optimal proportion of replacing slag with fine aggregate by 20%, resulting in a 24.3% increase in peak load.

Improving collaborative filtering using lexicon-based sentiment analysis

Since data is available increasingly on the Internet, efforts are needed to develop and improve recommender systems to produce a list of possible favorite items. In this paper, we expand our work to enhance the accuracy of Arabic collaborative filtering by applying sentiment analysis to user reviews, we also addressed major problems of the current work by applying effective techniques to handle the scalability and sparsity problems. The proposed approach consists of two phases: the sentiment analysis and the recommendation phase. The sentiment analysis phase estimates sentiment scores using a special lexicon for the Arabic dataset. The item-based and singular value decomposition-based collaborative filtering are used in the second phase. Overall, our proposed approach improves the experiments’ results by reducing average of mean absolute and root mean squared errors using a large Arabic dataset consisting of 63,000 book reviews

Modelling, Identification and Control of A" Magnetic Levitation CE152

43 unstable, it should be linearized at optional operating point and a digital PID controller with a fine tuned parameters is designed to track a small varying input signals. Finally the simulation’s model is validated with the real system, the results show the simulation’s model is adequately represents the real magnetic levitation system

Evaluation of transvaginal ultrasound role in the prediction of adenomyosis: correlation with histopathology

Background: Adenomyosis is a common gynecologic disorder that primarily affects women of reproductive age that has reported incidence of 5-70% in surgical and postmortem specimens. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of various transvaginal sonographic findings in adenomyosis by comparing them with histopathological results and to determine the most valuable sonographic feature in the diagnosis of adenomyosis.Methods: All transvaginal US findings were correlated with those from histologic examination. The frequency of presenting symptoms and signs of adenomyosis were evaluated. Transvaginal US depicted 10 of 12 pathologically proved cases of adenomyosis. Adenomyosis was correctly ruled out in 33 of 38 patients.Results: Transvaginal US had a sensitivity of 83%, a specificity of 86%, and a positive and negative predictive value of 66% and 94%, respectively. Of the 10 patients with true-positive findings at transvaginal US, the myometrium demonstrated heterogeneous with or without the presence of cysts in nine (75%) patients, linear striation in four (33.3%) patients and globular uterus in six (50%) patients. Three (25%) of 12 cases of adenomyosis had an enlarged uterus, adenomyosis was a significant association with high parity.Conclusions: Adenomyosis can be diagnosed with a considerable accuracy by transvaginal ultrasound. The most common sonographic criteria of adenomyosis are heterogeneous myometrial appearance while the most specific criteria are myometrial cysts, sub-endometrial echogenic linear striations and globular configuration of the uterus

Area contraction effect on shock tube performance, numerical and experimental study

The paper presents numerical and experimental study on the effect of area contraction in shock tube facility. The shock tube is the main component of short duration test facility at The Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Malaysia. In the shock tube, a small area contraction in form of a removable bush was facilitated adjacent to the diaphragm section. The flow process was simulated using a two-dimensional time-accurate Navier-Stokes solver. The solver uses second order accurate cell-vertex finite volume spatial discretization and fourth orders accurate Runge-Kutta temporal integration. In this study, the solver was programmed based on the dimensions and configuration of UNITEN’s shock tube facility. The numerical results were validated with experimental data from the ground based test facility. Numerical pressure histories were found to be in accordance with the experimental data. For further investigations, simulations were conducted for different operating conditions. The results showed that shock tube performance in term of producing shock wave and steady gas flow is highly influenced by area contraction in the diaphragm section. The shock wave strength and speed decreased by 18% and 8% respectively

Correlation between Serum and Tissue Markers in Breast Cancer Iraqi Patients

            يعد سرطان الثدي من أكثر الأورام الخبيثة انتشارًا بين النساء في جميع أنحاء العالم ، وفي العراق يحتل المرتبة الأولى والسبب الرئيسي لوفيات الإناث المرتبطة بالسرطان. صممت هذه الدراسة لبحث العلاقات بين معلمات المصل والنسيج من أجل توضيح دورها في تطور أو تراجع سرطان الثدي. معلمات الورم هي مجموعة من المواد ، تكون بشكل رئيسي ذات طبيعة بروتينية ، تنتج من الخلايا السرطانية أو من خلايا أخرى في الجسم استجابة للورم. أجريت الدراسة في الفترة من أبريل 2018 إلى أبريل 2019 بإجمالي عدد 60 امرأة مصابة بسرطان الثدي. تم جمع عينات الدم من النساء المصابات بسرطان الثدي في فترة ما بعد الجراحة وما قبل العلاج اللائي حضرن إلى مستشفى الأورام التعليمي في مدينة الطب في بغداد وتم تقييم معلمات المصل بتقنية ELISA وهي Carbohydrate Antigen 15-3 (Ca 15-3) و Carbohydrate Antigen 29 Ca 27.29)) ، هرمون مضاد مولر (AMH) ، عامل نخر الورم ألفا (TNF-α) ، إنترلوكين 6 (IL-6) ، إنترلوكين 10 (IL-10) وبروتين البربخ البشري 4 (HE4) . تم جمع عينات الأنسجة لنفس النساء المصابات بسرطان الثدي اللواتي حضرن إلى مدينة الطب ، بغداد بإجمالي عدد 30. تم تقييم معلمات الأنسجة باستخدام تقنية الكيمياء النسجية المناعية وهي مستقبلات هرمون الاستروجين (ER) ، مستقبلات البروجسترون (PR) ، مستقبل عامل نمو البشرة البشري 2  (Her 2 / neu) و Cyclin E.  أظهرت نتائج العلاقات بين معلمات المصل و معلمات الانسجة وجود ارتباط معنوي موجب (0.017) بين مستضد الكاربوهيدرات 27.29 و مستقبل عامل النمو البشرة البشري 2 ، (0.038) بين انترلوكين-6 مع النمط الظاهري لسايكلين اي ، (0.051) بين عامل نخر الورم-الفا و شدة سايكلين اي ، (0.005) بين بروتين البربخ البشري-4 و مستقبل عامل النمو البشرة البشري 2 و ارتباط معنوي سالب (0.058) بين انترلوكين-10 و مستقبل الاستروجين ، و (0.045) بين بروتين البربخ البشري-4 و شدة سايكلين اي. نستنتج من هذه العلاقات أن العلاقات الطردية تزيد من تطور المرض ، مثل العلاقة بين Ca 27.29 مع Her-2 / neu و cyclin E مع IL-6 و cyclin E مع TNF-α. وقد تساهم العلاقات العكسية في تأخر المرض ، مثل العلاقة بين IL-10 مع ER. من نتائج العلاقات في هذه الدراسة أتضح أن المعلمات Ca 27.29 ، Her-2 / neu ، cyclin E تلعب دورًا مهمًا في تطور المرض.Breast cancer is the most prevalent malignancy among women worldwide, in Iraq it ranks the first among the population and the leading cause of cancer related female mortality. This study is designed to investigate the correlations between serum and tissue markers in order to clarify their role in progression or regression breast cancer. Tumor Markers are groups of substances, mainly proteins, produced from cancer cell or from other cells in the body in response to tumor.  The study was carried out from April 2018 to April 2019 with total number of 60 breast cancer women. The blood samples were collected from breast cancer women in postoperative and pretherapeutic who attended teaching oncology hospital of the medical city in Baghdad and the serum markers evaluated by ELISA technique are Carbohydrate Antigen 15-3 (Ca 15-3), Carbohydrate Antigen 27.29 (Ca 27.29), Anti-Mullerian Hormone (AMH), Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-α), Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Interleukin-10 (IL-10) and Human Epidiymis Protein-4 (HE4). Tissue samples were collected for the same breast cancer women who attended medical city, Baghdad with total number 30. The tissue markers evaluated by Immunohistochemical technique are Estrogen Receptor (ER), Progesterone Receptor (PR), Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2 (Her 2/neu) and Cyclin E. The results showed a positive significant correlation (p = 0.017) between Ca 27.29 and Her-2/neu, (p = 0.038) between IL-6 and cyclin E phenotype, (p = 0.051) between TNF-α and Cyclin E intensity, (p = 0.005) between HE4 and Her-2/neu, and negative significant correlation (p = 0.058) between IL-10 and ER score and (p = 0.045) between HE4 with Cyclin E intensity. We conclude from these correlations that positive correlations increasing disease progression, like correlation between Ca 27.29 and Her-2/neu, cyclin E with IL-6 and cyclin E with TNF-α. And the negative correlations may contribute to delay disease, like correlation between IL-10 and ER. From the correlations results in this study, it is clear that the Ca 27.29, Her-2 / neu, cyclin E markers play an important role in disease progression