Aprendizaje móvil para el desarrollo profesional docente: una evaluación empírica de un modelo ampliado de aceptación de la tecnología

This study explores how mobile learning (m-learning) can serve as a valuable resource for the professional development of Iraqi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the research investigates the model's fit, structural relationships between variables, and potential moderating effects of gender and academic rank. Findings revealed that Iraqi EFL teachers generally demonstrated positive attitudes toward m-learning adoption, with identified challenges in self-efficacy and ease of use. Gender analysis indicated that females exhibited higher ease of use, self-efficacy, enjoyment, and positive attitudes and intentions toward m-learning adoption. Higher-ranked teachers perceived m-learning as more useful. The extended TAM displayed a good fit to empirical data, revealing significant positive relationships between variables. Gender did not moderate these relationships, but academic rank played a substantial role. The findings guide strategies for targeted professional development, addressing technical support concerns, and designing engaging experiences to facilitate successful m-learning integration in higher education, considering the unique needs and challenges of Iraqi EFL teachers.Este estudio explora cómo el aprendizaje móvil (m-learning) puede servir como un recurso valioso para el desarrollo profesional de docentes de inglés como lengua extranjera (EFL) en la educación superior en Irak durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Utilizando un Modelo de Aceptación de Tecnología (TAM) ampliado, la investigación examina la idoneidad del modelo, las relaciones estructurales entre variables y los posibles efectos moderadores de género y rango académico. Los hallazgos revelaron que, en general, los docentes de EFL en Irak mostraron actitudes positivas hacia la adopción del m-learning, identificando desafíos en la autoeficacia y la facilidad de uso. El análisis de género indicó que las mujeres mostraron una mayor facilidad de uso, autoeficacia, disfrute, y actitudes e intenciones positivas hacia la adopción del m-learning. Los docentes de mayor rango percibieron el m-learning como más útil. El TAM ampliado mostró una buena adaptación a los datos empíricos, revelando relaciones positivas significativas entre las variables. El género no moderó estas relaciones, pero el rango académico desempeñó un papel sustancial. Los hallazgos orientan estrategias para el desarrollo profesional dirigido, abordando preocupaciones de soporte técnico y diseñando experiencias atractivas para facilitar la exitosa integración del m-learning en la educación superior, teniendo en cuenta las necesidades y desafíos únicos de los docentes de EFL en Irak

Aprendizaje móvil para el desarrollo profesional docente: una evaluación empírica de un modelo ampliado de aceptación de la tecnología

This study explores how mobile learning (m-learning) can serve as a valuable resource for the professional development of Iraqi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in higher education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the research investigates the model's fit, structural relationships between variables, and potential moderating effects of gender and academic rank. Findings revealed that Iraqi EFL teachers generally demonstrated positive attitudes toward m-learning adoption, with identified challenges in self-efficacy and ease of use. Gender analysis indicated that females exhibited higher ease of use, self-efficacy, enjoyment, and positive attitudes and intentions toward m-learning adoption. Higher-ranked teachers perceived m-learning as more useful. The extended TAM displayed a good fit to empirical data, revealing significant positive relationships between variables. Gender did not moderate these relationships, but academic rank played a substantial role. The findings guide strategies for targeted professional development, addressing technical support concerns, and designing engaging experiences to facilitate successful m-learning integration in higher education, considering the unique needs and challenges of Iraqi EFL teachers.Este estudio explora cómo el aprendizaje móvil (m-learning) puede servir como un recurso valioso para el desarrollo profesional de docentes de inglés como lengua extranjera (EFL) en la educación superior en Irak durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Utilizando un Modelo de Aceptación de Tecnología (TAM) ampliado, la investigación examina la idoneidad del modelo, las relaciones estructurales entre variables y los posibles efectos moderadores de género y rango académico. Los hallazgos revelaron que, en general, los docentes de EFL en Irak mostraron actitudes positivas hacia la adopción del m-learning, identificando desafíos en la autoeficacia y la facilidad de uso. El análisis de género indicó que las mujeres mostraron una mayor facilidad de uso, autoeficacia, disfrute, y actitudes e intenciones positivas hacia la adopción del m-learning. Los docentes de mayor rango percibieron el m-learning como más útil. El TAM ampliado mostró una buena adaptación a los datos empíricos, revelando relaciones positivas significativas entre las variables. El género no moderó estas relaciones, pero el rango académico desempeñó un papel sustancial. Los hallazgos orientan estrategias para el desarrollo profesional dirigido, abordando preocupaciones de soporte técnico y diseñando experiencias atractivas para facilitar la exitosa integración del m-learning en la educación superior, teniendo en cuenta las necesidades y desafíos únicos de los docentes de EFL en Irak

Laparoscopic Repair of Penetrating Injury of the Diaphragm: an Experience from a District Hospital

In this study we review our experience in using laparoscopy as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool in dealing with penetrating diaphragmatic injuries due to stab wounds and look at the feasibility of using this procedure in other similar institutions. Thirty patients, all of whom were males 20-30 years of age, presented to the surgical emergency unit of our hospital with upper abdominal and lower chest wall stab wounds between 01-05-1998 and 30-11-2006. Diagnosis of the diaphragm injury was either obvious with omentum herniating through the chest wall, or occult with confirmation of the injury at laparoscopy. All patients underwent diagnostic laparoscopy, which resulted in identification and efficient treatment of eight patients with diaphragmatic injury, and thereby laparotomy was avoided. The procedure converted to open surgery in one patient because of a small left-sided colonic tear. Laparoscopy is an efficient tool for the diagnosis and management of diaphragmatic injuries. It should be used routinely instead of exploratory laparotomy in haemodynamically stable patients with penetrating lower chest injuries

Multilingual Querying

Non-English-speaking users, such as Arabic speakers, are not always able to express terminology in their native languages, especially in scientific domains. Such difficulty forces many Arabic authors and scholars to use English terms in order to explain precise concepts, resulting in mixed/multilingual queries with both English and Arabic terms. Current CLIR techniques are optimized for monolingual queries, even if they are translated, but neither mixed-language queries nor searches for mixed-language documents have yet been adequately studied. This paper attempts to address the problem of multilingual querying in CLIR. It shows experimentally that current search engines and IR systems are not language-aware and are not adequate for multilingual querying. The paper then presents the main ingredients that every language-aware solution should take care of

Building a Multilingual and Mixed Arabic-English Corpus

Most currently available test collections and almost all CLIR collections have focused upon general-domain news stories. In addition, most of these corpora are built to help with retrieval of documents based on monolingual queries, even if they are translated. This paper presents the first-phase - building the corpus - of ongoing research to study the trends of multilinguality with special focus on Arabic/English multilingual texts in both queries and documents in scientific domains. The necessity of such a corpus would help a lot in providing good algorithms for Web searching of scholars in the Arabic World. The paper presented also the features of such corpus, how it is collected and how it has been validated in terms of terms frequencies, sparseness and vocabulary growth, using statistical tests. Results showed that the data is imbalanced at present

Antibacterial and antibiofilm activities of polysaccharides, essential oil, and fatty oil extracted from Laurus nobilis growing in Lebanon

AbstractObjectiveTo evaluate the antibacterial activity of the extracts of Laurus nobilis against three Gram-positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 25923, Enterococcus faecalis ATCC 29212 and Staphylococcus epidermidis CIP 444) and two Gram-negative bacteria (Escherichia coli ATCC 35218 and Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853). Also, the antibiofilm activity has been investigated against the biofilm produced by Staphylococcus epidermidis CIP 444.MaterialsThe polysaccharides, essential oil, and fatty oils extracted from the plant were used in broth microdilution methods to study the minimal inhibitory concentration, and then the minimal bactericidal concentration was determined.ResultsThe results showed that alginate, fucoidan, fatty oils and essential oil have good antibacterial activities against the 5 bacterial strains, and a negligible biofilm eradication activity of fucoidan, laminaran, fatty oil, and essential oil was observed, but a promising biofilm eradication activity was obtained with alginate, which showed a reduced biofilm mass even at low concentration.ConclusionsThe extracts obtained have promising antibacterial capacities which need further investigation for them to be incorporated in medical or nutritional applications

SURVEY: AUDIO READING SYSTEM FOR BLIND PERSONS

Audio Reading System is used to help blind people to read the text based on camera as input device and speaker as output device. The system used the OCR algorithm to extract the text from input image and Text-to-Speech algorithm to convert text into corresponding voice. In this paper, we review newest research of audio reading system. We discuss the hardware and software, which is used, on system for different types approach. Finally, the result of this paper that is: Raspberry pi, python and tesseract are best tools used in Audio reading system. Also the braille and finger print devices are not efficient and not easy to use

Role of NPK Fertilizer and Planting Ates on the Vegetative and Flowering Growth Tributes of Two Varieties of Snake Melon

The purpose of this research was to determine the response of two varieties of snake melon to the levels of NPK fertilizer and planting dates in terms of vegetative and flowering growth characters. The experiment was conducted in the vegetable field of the Department of Horticulture and Landscape Engineering/College of Agriculture and Forestry University of Mosul during the spring season 2023. The study included three factors. The first factor: Two local cucumber varieties: (gennxt and Mosli). The second factor was compound fertilizer (NPK) at four levels (270, 180, 90.0 kg/ha!) and the third factor: planting dates. Two planting dates were chosen: (4/1/2023) and (4/20/2023). Compound fertilizer (NPK) was added to the soil in three stages, the first three weeks after planting and after the plants reached the appropriate size (four true leaves), and the second and third at an interval of 20 days between one stage and the next. Thus, the experiment included 18 treatments (2 x 2 x 4 = 16). With three replications, the experiment was carried out in the field using a factorial experiment according to a randomized complete block design (RCBD), where the treatments were randomly distributed according to the design used in the experiment. The results were analyzed statistically according to the design used, and the means were compared according to Duncan's multinomial test at the probability level of 0.05

Driver Drowsiness Detection Based On the DenseNet 201 Model

Driving a vehicle with drowsiness is a very serious and widespread problem in society, because driver drowsiness negatively impacts the response time of the driver and, as a result, when the level of drowsiness increases in the driver, he loses control of his vehicle. He can unexpectedly veer off the lane, colliding with an obstacle or causing a car to overturn.  In this paper, we present a low-cost, non-intrusive, more accurate, and better solution for detecting driver drowsiness in real-time in real-world driving conditions, whenever the drowsiness is detected, the system activates an audible alarm to alert the driver before he falls asleep. In the proposed method, we used the most important facial components that are considered the most effective for sleepiness. We used the Viola-Jones algorithm to detect the driver’s face and eyes area. Then we inserted the resulting image into the deep convolutional neural network (DenseNet 201). To detect driver drowsiness in real-time, the system has been tested and implemented in a real environment. The experimental results showed that the proposed system can detect driver drowsiness with 99% accuracy

Numerical assessment of heat sink for pressure sensor connections

Pressure sensors, converting pressure force to electrical outputs such as 4-20 mA or 0-10 V, are used in a vast variety of areas while being facing numerous challenging thermal conditions. A common way is to design a heat sink for establishing natural convection cooling to protect the sensor. This work assesses a heat sink design and conveys its performance as a heat sink for an application interval. Special orientation as well as design geometry is introduced. Computational fluid dynamics were utilized for evaluation and assessment. A core region of heat transfer was identified. Natural convection wake boundaries were detected. It is concluded that the design can successfully protect the pressure sensor at the pressure tap. Future projections and aspects are also described in the paper