Teaching English In Iraq:an Analysis Of An Efl Textbook

This study evaluates the fifth- grade beginning English textbook, Iraq Opportunities 3, which was introduced in elementary schools by the Iraqi Ministry of Education in 2012. This mixed methods research aims to analyze the content of a new textbook that is considered to be the foundation of the English language program in Iraq. This is a valuable research project since its findings reveal the strengths and weaknesses of Iraq Opportunities 3 based on three critical components: grammar, vocabulary, and culture. A survey questionnaire was used in this study to elicit the perspectives of English language teachers who are using this textbook in their classrooms along with the personal evaluation by the researcher. Three research questions were addressed in this study: 1) How are grammar and vocabulary addressed in Iraq Opportunities 3? 2) How are English-speaking and Iraqi cultures represented in Iraq Opportunities 3? and 3) Is the L2 culture represented in this textbook in a way that exposes students to the English-speaking culture? The findings are generally in favor of the textbook in terms of grammar and vocabulary and their appropriateness for the age and level of students. However, the study criticizes the limited role and the poor representation of culture in this curriculum

Differential evolution detection models for SMS spam

With the growth of mobile phones, short message service (SMS) became an essential text communication service. However, the low cost and ease use of SMS led to an increase in SMS Spam. In this paper, the characteristics of SMS spam has studied and a set of features has introduced to get rid of SMS spam. In addition, the problem of SMS spam detection was addressed as a clustering analysis that requires a metaheuristic algorithm to find the clustering structures. Three differential evolution variants viz DE/rand/1, jDE/rand/1, jDE/best/1, are adopted for solving the SMS spam problem. Experimental results illustrate that the jDE/best/1 produces best results over other variants in terms of accuracy, false-positive rate and false-negative rate. Moreover, it surpasses the baseline methods

The Visual Elements of Computer-based Language Assessment: Aspects and Effects

The advent of computers and computer assisted technologies has certainly influenced many aspects of our personal and professional lives. The field of second language education is no exception, where such technologies first exerted their influence on conventional teaching methods, and from there moved onto methods of testing in second language acquisition. This transition from the “world of paper” to that of a computer screen and the associated technologies is arguably one of the most significant changes witnessed in second language education since the invention of the printing press. One of the questions that many studies tried to answer in regard to this change was: what effect do the visual elements of computer-based language tests have on test-takers

Upper respiratory tract infections and their association with knowledge, attitude and practice among Malaysian hajj pilgrims of 2007 A.D (1428 h)[RS1-441].

Setiap tahun lebih dari dua juta Muslim daripada lebih 140 negara menunaikan ibadat haji di Mekah dan Madinah. Each year more than two million Muslims perform the hajj rituals, in Makkah and Medina from over 140 countries

Partial Encryption in Digital Image Based On Plasma Encoding Techniques

Many digital services require reliable security in storage and transmission of digital images. Due to the rapid growth of theinternet in the digital world today, the security of digital images has become more important and attracted much attention. The prevalenceof multimedia technology in our society has promoted digital images to play a more significant role than the traditional texts, whichdemand serious protection of users' privacy for all applications. Encryption techniques of digital images are very important and should beused to frustrate unauthorized access from opponents. In this paper a new approach is proposed for partial encryption in digital imagebased on dragging the longest wavelength color in digital image then input the extract color to the plasma encoding algorithm to havepartial ciphered image that can be deciphered at the recipient side using the proposed retrieve algorithm. It is possible to apply multilevelfor the proposed approach to increase the security level with less time for encryption/decryption. The new approach test appeared that theencryption/decryption processes was very flexible and efficient

Communication strategies in second language teacher talk with special reference to Iranian teachers of English

The focus of this study is the use of communication strategies in teacher talk in ESL/EFL classrooms. Communication strategies consist of adjustments made by speakers to the formulation of their talk in order to facilitate communication, and these are clearly a potentially important aspect of teacher talk. Limiting communication strategies to those adaptations evident in the details of the interaction, the study uses a mixed method design to investigates firstly the type and frequency of communication strategies and their patterns of relationship across teachers grouped in terms of language background and teaching institution; and secondly the type and frequency of strategy use in relation to the focus of talk across the different phases of a standard lesson. The participants were three native speaker and six non-native speaker teachers, across three different ESL/EFL instructional settings. The data consist of a total of twenty seven recordings, made up of three lessons with each teacher. The study reports results from three phases of analysis. The categonsation phase leads to an operational definition of communication strategies which integrates conversational modifications with lexical -compensatory strategies. The quantification phase of the analysis shows that the two types of strategy occur with different frequencies and functions. No important differences were found between NS and NNS teachers. However, significant taskrelated differences were detected. Finally a case study of three teachers revealed a relationship between the focus of talk and the incidence of communication strategies across the phases of the analysed lesson. The implications of these results are firstly that communication strategies are indeed a central element of teacher talk; secondly, that lexical compensatory strategies and meaning negotiation strategies both contribute significantly to the construct; thirdly, that their use is important for both native speaker and non-native speaker teachers; fourthly, that they are used with significantly different frequencies and functions; and finally, that their use is influenced by teaching focus and activity type. It is also likely to be affected by factors such as teaching style. The thesis argues that, on the basis of the findings, further research into the use of communication strategies in teacher talk could make a significant contribution to teacher education

The Situation of Cost Management in Execution of Building Projects in Syria.

This research aims at studying the situation of cost management in building projects in Syria, evaluating the applied ways of cost management and finding the suitable means to improve it. To achieve that aim, a questionnaire was distributed to a number of workers in the building contraction sector in Syria to collect data and investigate the existing methodology in cost management in the building field. This research shows that cost management methodology is not applied in Syrian building projects and suggests some solutions that contribute in developing the condition of cost management based on universal methodologies in this field

Dynamics Spectrum Sharing Environment Using Deep Learning Techniques

The recent fast expansion of mobile communication services has resulted in a scarcity of spectrum resources. The challenge of multidimensional resource allocation in cognitive radio systems is addressed in this work. Complicated and dynamic Spectrum Sharing SS systems might be vulnerable to a variety of possible security and privacy vulnerabilities, necessitating protection techniques that are adaptable, dependable, and scalable. Methods based on machine learning (ML) have repeatedly been proposed to overcome these challenges. We present a complete assessment of the current progress of ML-based SS approaches, the most crucial security challenges, and the accompanying protection mechanisms in this paper. We develop cutting-edge methodologies for improving the performance of SS communication systems in a variety of critical areas, such as ML-based cognitive radio networks (CRNs), ML-based database assisted SS networks, ML-based LTE-U networks, ML-based ambient backscatter networks, and other ML-based SS solutions. The results of the simulation trials show that the suggested strategy may successfully boost the user's incentive while reducing collisions. In terms of reward, the suggested strategy beats opportunistic multichannel ALOHA by around 10% and 30%, respectively, for the single SU and multi-SU scenarios.&nbsp