But You Speak Great English! Challenging the Dominant Narratives of the International Student

Student affairs scholarship and practice take a deficit-based approach to understanding the experience of international students at U.S. colleges and universities. In this article, I reframe the challenges that international students face from a resiliency-based viewpoint, highlighting the strengths of international students and focusing on what institutions could do better to serve their needs. By challenging assumptions about international students, I hope to inspire student affairs professionals to adjust their programs and services to support the inherent resilience of international students, rather than reinforce stereotypical notions of what it means to be an international student in the U.S

The relationships between nurse care, attitude of patient and nurse with cancer patient satisfaction

This study investigates the relationships between nurse care, attitude of patient and nurse with cancer patient satisfaction using the quantitative methodology. In Libya, the challenge of medical facilities and treatment is a current issue. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the patients’ satisfaction at National Cancer Institute Misurata, Libya. The participants were 217 cancer patients of National Institute of Oncology located in Misurata, Libya. The study scale was adopted and adapted from that used by previous researchers to measure nurse care, nurse attitude, patient attitude, hospital service quality and patient satisfaction on a 5-point Likert scale. The nurse care, nurse attitude and patient attitude are independent variables and cancer patient satisfaction is the dependent variable in this study. On the other hand, hospital service quality and patient characteristic are control variables. SPSS software was used to analyses the data collected. The analyses of this study included descriptive statistic, correlation analysis and multiple regression analysis. The study found that on the overall basis, there is a significant statistical relationship between nurse care and cancer patient satisfaction, and there is a significant statistical relationship between attitude and cancer patient satisfaction. The sub-hypotheses show that there are no a relationship between interpersonal skills of nurse care and efficiency of nurse care with cancer patient satisfaction which suggest there might be interactions between these variables. Result also shows that for the sub-hypotheses, only patient attitude and cancer patient satisfaction indicated significant relationship, while there is no significant relationship between nurse attitude and patient satisfaction. This also indicates of possible interactions between the variables. On an overall basis, it can be concluded that to increase in the satisfaction level cancer patient, the management do it by focusing on improving the level of nurse care, nurse attitude and patient attitude

Constant DC output boost converter for solar system sourace model

A Neural network controller of DC-DC boost converter is designed and presented in this project. In order to control the output voltage of the boost converter, the controller is designed to change the duty cycle of the converter. The mathematical model of boost converter and neural network controller are derived to design simulation model. The simulation is developed on Matlab simulation program. To verity the effectiveness of the simulation model, an experimental set up is developed. The boost circuit with mosfet as a switching component is developed. The neural network controller to generate duty cycle of PWM signal is programmed. The simulation and experimental results show that the output voltage of the boost converter can be controlled according to the value of duty cycle

WAP-Based Library Services And Online E-Book Service For Rural Community

Both the wireless data market and the Internet are growing very quickly and are continuously reaching new customers. The explosive growth of the Internet has fuelled the creation of new and exciting information services. Many rural people are not able to enjoy facilities and opportunities to improve their quality of lives as those in the urban. Thus the goals of this research were to develop library services application for rural community using WAP and Web technologies. The development process and problems encountered when designing the prototype were discussed. The usability testing conducted in this research revealed the application is effective

The Washback Effect of Self and Peer Assessment in Second Language Writing

The Washback Effect of Self and Peer Assessment in Second Language Writin

A web-based approach to engineering adaptive collaborative applications

Current methods employed to develop collaborative applications have to make decisions and speculate about the environment in which the application will operate within, the network infrastructure that will be used and the device type the application will operate on. These decisions and assumptions about the environment in which collaborative applications were designed to work are not ideal. These methods produce collaborative applications that are characterised as being inflexible, working on homogeneous networks and single platforms, requiring pre-existing knowledge of the data and information types they need to use and having a rigid choice of architecture. On the other hand, future collaborative applications are required to be flexible; to work in highly heterogeneous environments; be adaptable to work on different networks and on a range of device types. This research investigates the role that the Web and its various pervasive technologies along with a component-based Grid middleware can play to address these concerns. The aim is to develop an approach to building adaptive collaborative applications that can operate on heterogeneous and changing environments. This work proposes a four-layer model that developers can use to build adaptive collaborative applications. The four-layer model is populated with Web technologies such as Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the Resource Description Framework (RDF), Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL) and Gridkit, a middleware infrastructure, based on the Open Overlays concept. The Middleware layer (the first layer of the four-layer model) addresses network and operating system heterogeneity, the Group Communication layer enables collaboration and data sharing, while the Knowledge Representation layer proposes an interoperable RDF data modelling language and a flexible storage facility with an adaptive architecture for heterogeneous data storage. And finally there is the Presentation and Interaction layer which proposes a framework (Oea) for scalable and adaptive user interfaces. The four layer model has been successfully used to build a collaborative application, called Wildfurt that overcomes challenges facing collaborative applications. This research has demonstrated new applications for cutting-edge Web technologies in the area of building collaborative applications. SVG has been used for developing superior adaptive and scalable user interfaces that can operate on different device types. RDF and RDFS, have also been used to design and model collaborative applications providing a mechanism to define classes and properties and the relationships between them. A flexible and adaptable storage facility that is able to change its architecture based on the surrounding environments and requirements has also been achieved by combining the RDF technology with the Open Overlays middleware, Gridkit

An investigation on factors affecting the internal audit effectiveness: A survey on the Libyan commercial banks

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors affecting an internal audit effectiveness (IAE) in the Libyan commercial banks. Therefore, this study employed a quantitative method through convenience sampling survey. To achieve objectives of the study, questionnaires were distributed online to 113 Libyan commercial banks. Eighty questionnaires were retrieved back from the internal auditors in the banks at the response rate of 70.8%. The data was analyzed through Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The result showed direct relation effects of management support, organizational independence of internal auditors, competence of internal auditors and audit experience with the IAE within the Libyan commercial banks. According to the regression output, management support has significant and positive contribution for the IAE, while the other three variables: the organizational independence of internal auditors, competence of internal auditors and audit experience have shown positive relation with the IAE, however their contribution for the IAE are statistically insignificance. The whole four independent variables provide 52.8% of the contributions for IAE in the Libyan commercial banks. The variables have collective significance in identifying any non-compliance activities and could also add values for the IAE in the Libyan commercial bank

Wet Gas Flow Metering Technique Using a Venturi With Conductance Sensors

Wet gas metering is becoming an increasingly important problem to the oil and gas industry. Much research has been done to measure the water and gas flow rates of two-phase flows using a Venturi meter. The Venturi meter is a favoured device for metering of unprocessed wet natural gas production flows. In this thesis, various combinations of techniques have been employed in annular gas-liquid two phase flows to measure the flow parameters (e.g. liquid film thickness, gas volume fraction and gas and water flow rates). One of the most useful techniques which was used and which has proven attractive for many previous multiphase flow applications is the electrical conductance technique used in conjunction with the Venturi. In this thesis, research has been done on designing a novel wet gas flow metering technique, which combines a Venturi with conductance sensors at the inlet and throat to measure the gas and the water flow rates and gas mass flow rate in vertical annular (wet gas) flows. Two ring conductance sensors at the inlet of the Venturi were used to measure the film velocity by cross correlation, one of the inlet ring conductance sensors was used to measure the film thickness and the inlet gas volume fraction. A ring conductance sensor at the throat was used to measure the gas volume fraction at the Venturi throat. A digital level sensor was also used to measure the film thickness (and the gas volume fraction) at the inlet of the Venturi. The reason for measuring the film thickness, the film velocity, the gas volume fraction at the inlet and the throat of the Venturi was to determine the gas and water flow rate and the gas mass flow rate in annular wet gas two phase flow using a variety of mathematical models of Venturis. This work included both static ‘bench’ and flow loop experiments. In the flow loop experiments, which were limited to air-water two-phase flow, the test section included a Venturi meter with a 50mm inlet diameter with conductance sensors at inlet and the throat. Reference measurements of the water and air were made with a turbine flow meter and a variable area flow meter respectively. A Honeywell DP cell sensor was used to measure the differential pressure between the inlet and the throat of the Venturi. A NI USB 6009 data acquisition device was used to integrate the system measurements and to control the operation of the overall Venturi system. A program was created using Labview software to read the input signals from the throat conductance ring sensor; the inlet conductance ring sensors; the digital level sensor; the DP cell sensor; the variable area flow meter and the turbine meter. From these measurements the gas volume fraction at the Venturi inlet and the throat, the differential pressure between the inlet and the throat of the Venturi, the film thickness and the film velocity at the Venturi inlet were calculated and were used with appropriate mathematical models to calculate the gas volumetric rate; gas mass flow rate; and the water mass and volumetric flow rates. Reference values of the gas a water flow rates were also calculated from the turbine meter and variable area flow meter outputs

Fingerprint Image Compression Using Wavelet Transform

The fingerprint is considered to be the most reliable kind of personal identification because it cannot be forgotten, misplaced, or stolen. Fingerprint authorization is potentially the most affordable and convenient method of verifying a person's identity. Storage of fingerprint image databases needs allocation of huge secondary storage devices. To reduce the increasing demand on storage space, efficient data compression techniques are needed. In addition to that, the exchange of fingerprint images between the governmental agencies could be done fast. The compression algorithm must also preserve original information in the original image. Digital image compression based on the ideas of subband decomposition or discrete wavelet transform (DWT) has received much attention in recent years. In fact, wavelet refers to a set of basic function, which is recursively defined form, a set of scaling coefficients and scaling function. Discrete Wavelet Transform CDWT) represents images as a sum of wavelet function on different resolution level. Essential for wavelet transform can be composed of any function that satisfies requirements of multi-resolution analysis. It means that there exists a large selection of wavelet families depending on choice of wavelet function. The objective of this study is to evaluate a variety of wavelet filters using Wavelet toolbox for selecting the best wavelet filters to be used in compress and decompress of selected fingerprint images. Therefore a two-dimensional wavelet decomposition, quantization and reconstruction using several families of filter banks were applied to a set of fingerprint images. The results show that no specific wavelet filter performs uniformly except for Biorthogonal and Symlets, and that is using the matching technique. The result shows that at a threshold value equal of 160 and decomposition level 3 with a wavelet filter sym4, there is no difference between the original and reconstructed image. This study concludes that using wavelet filters sym4 and bior3.7 can achieve compression ratio 27: 1 with PSNR 20.36 dB and 17: 1 with PSNR 21.88 dB respectively. These values indicate that using these filters, the quality of the reconstructed fingerprint still exist