Guitar improvisation: the concept of improvisation (au privave by Charlie Parker) / Syed Aizuddin Asraf Syed A. Rahman

The purpose of this study is to investigate the concept of improvisation among modern guitar music students. The study was involved 5 degree guitarist students in Music in Performance UiTM Shah Alam.. This research used a qualitative approach, where it discusses the improvisation method being used by the student. The methodology being for this study involved 13 questions that specifically focused on the improvisation technique. The findings from this research was analyzed and all of the respondent's answers to the questionnaire and interview were compared to see the differences and similarities

Deep Learning using Convolutional LSTM estimates Biological Age from Physical Activity

Human age estimation is an important and difcult challenge. Diferent biomarkers and numerous approaches have been studied for biological age estimation, each with its advantages and limitations. In this work, we investigate whether physical activity can be exploited for biological age estimation for adult humans. We introduce an approach based on deep convolutional long short term memory (ConvLSTM) to predict biological age, using human physical activity as recorded by a wearable device. We also demonstrate fve deep biological age estimation models including the proposed approach and compare their performance on the NHANES physical activity dataset. Results on mortality hazard analysis using both the Cox proportional hazard model and Kaplan-Meier curves each show that the proposed method for estimating biological age outperforms other state-of-the-art approaches. This work has signifcant implications in combining wearable sensors and deep learning techniques for improved health monitoring, for instance, in a mobile health environment. Mobile health (mHealth) applications provide patients, caregivers, and administrators continuous information about a patient, even outside the hospital

Object's shadow removal with removal validation

We introduce in this paper, a shadow detection and removal method for moving objects especially for humans and vehicles. An effective method is presented for detecting and removing shadows from foreground figures. We assume that the foreground figures have been extracted from the input image by some background subtraction method. A figure may contain only one moving object with or without shadow. The homogeneity property of shadows is explored in a novel way for shadow detection and image division technique is used. The process is followed by filtering, removal, boundary removal and removal validation

Islamic Counseling Approach by Abdullah Nasih Ulwan for Preventing Aggressive Behaviour Among School Students

The issue of aggressive behaviour is often the subject of serious discussion amongst discipline teachers and school counselors. From the Islamic perspective, aggressive behaviour is caused by the lack of Islamic values in aspects of student interaction at schools. Thus, the readiness of discipline teachers and school counselors to tap into the skills and knowledge of counseling using the Islamic approach is crucial in realizing the outlined educational development plan. This concept paper aims to enhance the effectiveness of Islamic counseling based on Abdullah Nasih Ulwan’s views in addressing aggressive behaviour among school students. The methodology of the study is in the form of literature reviews by examining books, journals and previous studies related to the topic of discussion. The study has found that there are 4 ways of dealing with aggressive behaviours among secondary school students based on Abdullah Nasih Ulwan’s view which are the responsibility of faith education, the responsibility of educating the mind, the responsibility of educating the mind awareness and the responsibility of educating the soul. The guidelines above should be utilized by school counselors in handling the issue of aggressive behaviours amongst school students

Comparative study of Bacillus clausii and multistrain probiotics in the management of acute diarrhoea in children

Background: Diarrhoea is the second most common cause of under-five mortality especially in developing world. Many studies have been conducted so far using different probiotic strains with variable outcome. So, the aim of the present study was to compare the clinical efficacy of Bacillus clausii and multi strain probiotic formulation as adjunct treatment of acute diarrhoea.Methods: This prospective single blind randomized controlled clinical trial included 300 infants and children between 6 months to 6 years of age admitted in a tertiary care hospital Sylhet, Bangladesh with acute watery diarrhoea having varied dehydration status ranging from no to severe dehydration excluding shocked state. Cases were randomly assigned to three groups which were group I (n=100) comprised of children who were treated with standard treatment (according to WHO guideline) only as control group, group II (n=100) who received standard treatment plus Bacillus clausii and group III (n=100) who received standard treatment plus multi strain probiotic formulation (Lactobacillus casei, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus bulgaricus, Bifidobacterium breve, Bifidobacterium infantis, Streptococcus thermophilus). Primary outcome variables were duration, frequency of diarrhoea and consistency of stool. Secondary outcome variable was duration of hospital stay.Results: Mean duration of diarrhoea was significantly shorter (p=0.001) in group III (2.62 days) compared to group I (3.26 days) and group II (3.22 days). Frequency of diarrhoea was significantly lower on day 3 of probiotic administration in group III (p 0.05) in group II in comparison to group I and group III.Conclusions: Multistrain probiotic formulation is effective in reducing the duration, frequency of diarrhoea and duration of hospital stay

Island Size Selectivity during 2D Ag Island Coarsening on Ag (111)

We report on early stages of submonolayer Ag island coarsening on Ag(111) surface at room temperature ($300$ K) carried out using realistic kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations. We find that during early stages, coarsening proceeds as a sequence of selected island sizes creating peaks and valleys in the island size distribution. We find that island-size selectivity is due to formation of kinetically stable islands for certain sizes because of adatom detachment/attachment processes and large activation barrier for kink detachment. In addition, we find that the ratio of number of adatom attachment to detachment processes to be independent of parameters of initial configuration and also on the initial shapes of the islands confirming that island-size selectivity is independent of initial conditions.These simulations were carried out using a very large database of processes identified by their local environment and whose activation barriers were calculated using the embedded-atom method

Association of Physical Activity with Co-morbid Conditions in Geriatric Population

To find out association of physical activity with co-morbid conditions in geriatric population, a cross-sectional study was conducted in different cties of Pakistan in 2015. A total of 114 participants were inducted by non-probability convenience sampling technique. Data was collected after informed verbal consent by a validated questionnaire that is Rapid Assessment of Physical Activity (RAPA). Participants were categorized into two groups i.e. physically active and physically inactive. Data was entered and analyzed in SPSS version 20. There were 66 (57.9%) males and 48 (42.1%) females with mean age of 57.04±7.348 years. Among hypertensive individuals (n=43, 37.7%) there were 39 (90.7%) physically inactive, among individuals having angina (n=17, 14.9%) there were 15 (88.2%) physically inactive. Out of 37 (32.5%) diabetics, 35 (94.6%) were physically inactive. Among individuals suffering from arthritis (n=40, 35.1%), there were 38 (95%) physically inactive. A significant association was found between physical activity and diabetes and arthritis with p-value of 0.048 and 0.029 respectively. Physical activity is significantly associated with diabetes and arthritis in geriatric population. Adequate physical activity should be performed to reduce the risk of co-morbid conditions and improve the quality of life in geriatric population

Al-Quran learning using mobile speech recognition:an overview

The usage of mobile application in various aspects has been worldwide accepted and there are variety of mobile applications which developed to cater the usage of different background of the user. In this paper, a short survey which includes questionnaire is distributed to find the interest of user whom using application for learning Quran and concept of mobile speech apps. The main interest of this survey is to find the acceptance of user and explanation on the proposed usage of mobile speech recognition with feature of learning apps. Factors of mobile speech recognition and mobile learning are listed to support the results from the short survey

A study of the removal of some toxic metals In tap water by coffee grounds

This research is a study about the removal of toxic metals such as iron and chromium in tap water using coffee grounds as filters. Three samples of tap waters from different areas were collected, one sample from HUSM, one from Nurani Hostel and another one from D'Village (restaurant outside the campus). The purpose of collecting water samples from different areas is to determine whether the water from different tap water sources have different concentration of the metals concerned. Three different types of commercial coffee brands were selected to constitute different thickness of the coffee bed which were composed of fine, medium and coarse particles. This is to study the relevance of the coffee texture in the removal of the metals and the reason for selection of a variety thickness of coffee beds is to investigate the significance of the coffee bed thickness in the removal of metals. In the preparation of coffee, equal amounts of different types of coffee grounds were allowed to be in contact with different type of water, maintaining a constant time in which the coffee is in contact with water. In the first step, the concentration of the chromium and iron in the three samples of water was determined using the Atomic Absorption Spectrometry (AAS). The concentration of metals in the tap water samples were found to be very low, especially chromium. Therefore, the water samples had to be acid digested, complexed with a chelating agent and extracted by methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) to give a higher concentration of the metals. After the concentration of the metals in water samples were obtained, coffee was prepared using water from the same samples. As three different types of coffee were used and along with three different sources of water, a total of nine coffee extracts were prepared. The coffee extracts were oxidized first to remove the organic matter. Concentration of total iron was determined by direct AAS while that of chromium was estimated after MIBK treatment