Assessment of Students Performances in Biology: Implication for Measurements and Evaluation of Learning

Scienceeducation is believed to be a vital tool for individual and societal development at large. The persistent low levels of students' achievement in sciences at the various public examinations in Nigeria have continued to draw the attention of major stakeholders in education. This study examined academic achievement of Senior Secondary School students in biology and gender difference in students' achievement was examined. Ex-post facto design of descriptive research was adopted for the study. A proforma was used to collect data from a sample of two hundred (200) students, selected using stratified random sampling procedure from the Science secondary schools in Kano state Nigeria. The data collected were the students' performances in biology achievement tests. The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and independent-sample t-test. Overall results showed that the test internal consistency reliability is low and unsatisfactory; the students performed below average (M=47.02, SD=16.493 (47%). Similarly, gender difference exists in biology performance with another significant difference between performance of urban and rural school students. The study concludes that, biology test used in Kano state qualifying examinations to assess students potential ability in biology is not a reliable measurement tool and that, academic performance of students in biology is unsatisfactory and evidence of differential performance between gender and schools locations. The implication for measurements and evaluation of learning as well as recommendations has been discussed

THE TECHNOLOGY OF MANUFACTURING FUEL FOR OIL LAMPS IN THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD: AN APPLIED STUDY THROUGH THE FINDINGS OF THE ALEXANDRIA NECROPOLIS PROJECT OF SHATBY, ALEXANDRIA [2020–2023]

تكنولوجيا صناعة وقود إضاءة المسارج بالعصر الهلينستي «دراسة تطبيقية من خلال مكتشفات مشروع جبانة الشاطبي بالإسكندرية 2020-2023 [Ar] يقدم هذا البحث دراسة تطبيقية وتجريبية لما تم الكشف عنه من بقايا مادة وقود الإضاءة التى كانت تستخدم للمسارج فى الفترة الهلّينستية، وكذلك دراسة بقايا لفتيل محترق عثر عليه ضمن مشروع ترميم وتطوير وحماية جبانة الشاطبى الأثرية، والذى نفذته جمعية الآثار بالإسكندرية بتمويل من مؤسسة أ.ج. لفنتيس القبرصية فى الفترة من 2020-2023م. تضمن المشروع إعادة استكشاف الجبانة الأثرية بإزالة الرديم المتراكم بها عبر الزمن. وجادت الجبانة بالعديد من القطع الأثرية تمثلت فى مسارج وأطباق فخارية وأوانى الحضرة وبقايا عظام بشرية. أثبتت التحاليل والفحوص أن الصخر الذى نحتت فيه الجبانة الأثرية أحد أنواع الحجر الجيرى، وأن المياه الجوفية الموجودة بالجبانة هى مياه تترواح نسبة المعادن الذائبة بها بين 1,7جم/لتر ودرجة أس هيدروجينى pH 7.1 . تم تحليل مادة الوقود بالتحليل الكروماتوجرافى الغازى المزود بمطياف الكتلة، حيث أثبت أن مادة الوقود ذات أصل بترولى. واستخدم الفحص بالميكروسكوب الإلكترونى الماسح لفحص بقايا عينة الفتيل المتفحم، وتبين أنها جزء من ساق نبات البوط، وتم تأكيد النتيجة بفحص التركيب التشريحى لساقى نباتى البردى والبوط كجانب تجريبى. [En] This paper is an applied and experimental study on the remains of the fuel material that was used in oil lamps in the Hellenistic period, as well as the remains of a burning fuel and oil lamp wick. These remains are among the finds of the project of restoration, development, and protection of the archaeological cemetery of Shatby, conducted by the archaeological Society of Alexandria (2020-2023), funded by the A.G. Leventis foundation, Cyprus. The entire cemetery of Shatby is hewn in the a type of limestone called Calcarenite, which is a sedimentary rock. The groundwater at the site is slightly alkaline (pH 7.1), with the total dissolved solids (TDS) at 1.7 g/L. Remains of lighting fuel were found during the removal of the accumulated rubble in the ancient cemetery, where they were analyzed using gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis which proved that they are composed of crude oil. Using a scanning electron microscope to examine the traces of wick ash, it appeared that the wick was made of the culm of Cyperus articulate. Based on experimental work, this was also proven by light microscopy examination of the culms of Cyperus articulate and Cyperus papyrus

Neuro-Protection and Neuro-Therapy Effects of Acalypha Indica Linn. Water Extract Ex Vivo on Musculus Gastrocnemius Frog

The studies of neuro-protection and neuro-therapy effects of Acalypha indica Linn. water extract ex vivo on Musculus gastrocnemius frog have already done at three Departments in Faculty of Medicine, University of Indonesia. The experimental studies were done on 2 groups of frog for neuro-protection and neuro-therapy effects. Each group of frog was divided into 7 subgroups of application, 4 samples each. There were 5 subgroups of doses: 5; 10; 15; 20; 25 mg and 2 subgroups as control. Pancuronium bromide 0.2%, 4 mg, was used for a positive control as muscle relaxant. Neuro-protection study was done as follow: ringer – extract – pancuronium bromide, and neuro-therapy study was ringer – pancuronium bromide – extract, respectively. The parameters measured in these studies were the electrical activities such as amount and duration (second) of re-polarization; depolarization, resting potential, and the height of spike after electrical stimulation at 5 mV. Neuro-protection effect of extract was determined by the ability of muscle to show the electrical response after incubating with pancuronium bromide for 10 minutes, and after incubating with extract for 10 minutes for neuro-therapy effect. In the dose of 15 mg and 20 mg/mL of A. indica Linn. extract showed better activities than the dose of 25 mg of extract, both as neuro-protection and neuro-therapy effects, but statistically its have not a significant difference. This study should be followed by an in vivo experiment on frog and it would be done in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic studies on other animal models

Gender representation in Pakistani print media- a critical analysis

The key objective of this study was to examine the representations of men and women in print media in Pakistan. Gender role stereotyping and sexism in print media is not a low-profile gender issue as printed communication and contents still hold an important place in contemporary digital world. Keeping in view the importance of newspapers as the leading source of credible content/messages, this paper examined gender stereotyping and sexism in print media in Pakistan and attempted to highlight whether print media reproduces or challenges gender stereotypes and sexism? Keeping in view the complexity of sexism in print media, content and discourse analyses were performed on four widely read national newspapers. The findings have been placed within the socio-cultural context of Pakistani society and feminists theories. The study’s findings indicated that print media in Pakistan reinforces gender stereotypes and provide little challenge to gender stereotyped imagery of males and females

Corrosion study of pipeline material for seabed sediment in tropical climate

Corrosive environments such as marine sediments can cause corrosion to steel pipelines at any time when certain conditions are met. Seabed sediment could cause severe corrosion damage due to its corrosiveness to the pipelines buried under it. Many consequences could take place in case if there is incident in oil/gas pipelines. Successfully identifying elements of corrosion in marine sediment would enhance the future of steel structure protection and monitoring systems. This article focuses on the behaviour of corrosion rate of steel located near shore environment and the aim is to determine the effect of sediment on corrosion of steel. To investigate that, simulated near shore sediment conditions have been used where the steel coupons buried in sediments which have different characteristics. Weight loss technique has been implemented to determine the weight loss rate of the steel specimens. Based on the results of this study, metal weight loss increases as the duration of exposure to seabed sediment environment become longer. The sea sediment simulated condition has given significant levels of corrosion. Conclusively, the corrosion rate of steel in seabed sediment located in tropical region is complicated and further studies are suggested

Preliminary phytochemical screening and antioxidant activity of leave extract of Albizia chevalieri harms (Leguminoseae-Mimosoideae)

Antioxidant evaluation of Albizia chevalieri used in Northern Nigerian traditional medicine, was carried out using the free radical scavenging activity of the 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl radical (DPPH), total phenolics content and reducing power assay on the methanol leave extract. The results of the DPPH scavenging activity study indicate a concentration dependent antioxidant activity with 59.588, 68.477, 77.240, 85.925 and 94.732% of various concentrations of 10, 25, 50, 125 and 250μg/ml of the extract respectively. The total phenolic content was found to be 60.20 mg/g Gallic acid equivalent (GAE) and the reducing power of 0.071±0.03nm was obtained. The DPPH scavenging activity of the extract was found to be promising. There is no significant difference (

Image Understanding Algorithms on Fine-Grained Tree-Structured SIMD Machines

An Important goal for researchers In computer vision is the construction vision systems that Interpret Image data in real time. Such systems typically require a large amount of computation for processing raw Image data at the lowest level, and for sophisticated decision making at the highest level Recent advances In VLSI circuitry· have led to several proposals for parallel architectures for computer vision systems. In this theSIS. we demonstrate that fine-grained tree-structured SIMD machines, which have favorable characteristics for efficient VLSI Implementation, can be used for the rapid execution of a wide range of Image understanding tasks We also Identify the limitations of these architectures and propose methods to ameliorate these difficulties. The NON-VON supercomputer, currently being constructed at Columbia University, is an example of such an architecture. The major contribution of this thesis IS the development and analysis of several parallel Image understanding algorithms for the class of architectures under consideration The algorithms developed In this research have been selected to span different levels of computer vision tasks They Include Image correlation, hlstogrammlng, connected component labeling, the computation of geometric properties, set operations, the Hough transform method for detecting object boundaries, and the correspondence problem In moving light display applications. The algorithms Incorporate novel approaches to reduce the effects of communication bottleneck usually associated With tree architecture

The Connected Component Algorithm on The NON-VON Supercomputer

The NON-VON Supercomputer is a highly parallel tree-structured computer that is being Implemented at Columbia University. In this paper, we demonstrate that tree architectures with their favorable characteristics for VLSI Implementation, and fast global broadcast, lend themselves easily and naturally to the representation and manipulation of Images represented by hierarchical data structures A description of NON-VON architecture IS presented With an emphasis on the special architectural features that will be used m our Image understanding algorithms. We adopt a variation of the quad tree data structure, called the binary Image tree, to represent images in the NON-VON tree We show how Images are loaded in the NON-VON tree, and present the algorithm for budding the binary Image trees. An efficient Implementation of the connected component labeling algorithm on NON-VON is then presented Simulation results are discussed, and we show the fast execution time of the algorithm on NON-VON. Other algorithms are also developed, such as hlstogrammlng, Hough transform, Set operations and Image correlation, and we can conclude that NON-VON can be used to Implement efficiently several :important Image understanding task