Evaluation of the use of ICT to support students’ learning and communication in a Saudi Arabian higher education institution : conflicts, contrasts and tensions in lecturers’ perspectives

This thesis explores lecturers’ views on the main issues surrounding their use of information and communications technology (ICT) to support students’ learning and communication in Jeddah University. It also identifies lecturers’ pedagogical beliefs in terms of using ICT in the classroom and explores the factors that might influence their use of ICT to support students’ learning and communication.A mixed-methods, two-phase research design, comprising a survey (n=160) of male and female lecturers and semi-structured interviews (n=16) with female lecturers only, was conducted. Using SPSS for the quantitative data, the results were analysed using thematic analysis.The analysis of the collected data resulted in several findings indicating that there are tensions between lecturers’ views on using ICT and what they claim to practise in the classroom. These tensions demonstrate contrasts in lecturers’ views in relation to many factors that may hinder their integration of ICT. These tensions are presented in the context of internal factors, such as pedagogical beliefs, attitudes and ICT skills, and external factors, for example ineffective ICT integration policy, university culture, and a lack of technical support, training and resources.The findings suggest that lecturers’ use of ICT to support students’ learning and communication faces a number of issues, such as tensions between the lecturers’ stated beliefs, practices, and the above-mentioned internal and external barriers. The study explores the main issues around lecturers’ use of ICT to support students’ communication in the light of a range of learning theories, as well as ICT acceptance models and the TPACK framework. Finally, the discussion leads to evaluating how facilitating lecturers’ use of ICT might be advantageous in moving towards a broadening of the pedagogical culture in Saudi Arabia

The Design of Academic Scheduling System Using Software Intelligent Components

The design of academic scheduling is considered a debatable issue that arises at the beginning of every term, whether the educational entity is a school, an institute, or a college. The debate lasts until the middle of the term, or, at times, to the very end. Solving the problem entails examining all the issues related to the teaching schedule. These include determining the conditions, priorities, and restrictions, which are programmed to produce the ideal schedule that realizes the educational institution’s ambitions. This study deals with designing teaching schedules for educational institutions by using the recent technology of software intelligent components to develop systems and schedules in various fields. Keywords: Academic Scheduling, scheduling system, software components, intelligent components

Energy efficient CM2M communications in E-healthcare systems

In this paper, cognitive machine to machine (CM2M) gateways in e-healthcare systems are presented by accessing a number of channels via periodic sensing and spectrum handoff. An optimal energy efficient spectrum management mechanism with multiple thresholds is proposed. The developed mechanism aims to reduce energy consumption in the system by optimizing the spectrum sensing and the channel switching, while decreasing the probability of collision, with assuring the reliability thresholds, throughput, and delay. Subsequently an antenna selection sensing (ASS) scheme is used to improve sensing accuracy. The simulation results show that the energy efficiency of the CM2M gateways can be improved significantly

Inference of Temporally Varying Bayesian Networks

When analysing gene expression time series data an often overlooked but crucial aspect of the model is that the regulatory network structure may change over time. Whilst some approaches have addressed this problem previously in the literature, many are not well suited to the sequential nature of the data. Here we present a method that allows us to infer regulatory network structures that may vary between time points, utilising a set of hidden states that describe the network structure at a given time point. To model the distribution of the hidden states we have applied the Hierarchical Dirichlet Process Hideen Markov Model, a nonparametric extension of the traditional Hidden Markov Model, that does not require us to fix the number of hidden states in advance. We apply our method to exisiting microarray expression data as well as demonstrating is efficacy on simulated test data

Effect of the Source of Sedimentation in the Mineralogical Composition of the Sand Fraction to Some Areas of the Southern Part of the Iraqi Alluvial Plain

This study was conducted to know the effect of the source of sedimentation in the mineralogical composition of sand fraction for some areas of the southern part of the Iraqi alluvial plain. The results of mineralogical composition of sand fraction showed that the dominant minerals, in the light part of sand fraction, were carbonate rock fragments , qurtz , chert , mudstone rock , feldspars , igeous and metamorphic rocks . While , the heavy part showed a similarities in terms of quality and differences in terms of quantity , with dominance of Opaque minerals followed by Staurolite , Kyanite , Rutile , and Tourmaline . In general, the results showed the low rates of the heavy metal group compared to the light metals group of the sand fraction resulting from weathering occurring in their moving places during transportation or after the deposition, this may be attributed to the nature of the mineralogical composition of the deposits material source. Keywords: sediments , minerals , sand fraction , Microscopic characteristics , optical of minerals , petrographic microscope , petrograph

Estudio de la sarcopenia y la fragilidad en una población diabética de edad avanzada y su relación con parámetros de estrés oxidativo

El envejecimiento de la población ha provocado que enfermedades crónicas asociadas a la edad como la diabetes mellitus tipo 2 (DM2) y síndromes geriátricos como la fragilidad o la sarcopenia hayan aumentado su prevalencia en la población. La DM2 aumenta el riesgo de padecer sarcopenia y fragilidad en la población geriátrica a la vez que el diagnóstico de sarcopenia y fragilidad supone un factor de riesgo para el desarrollo de diabetes. Al estudiar los mecanismos fisiopatológicos de estas patologías se encuentra el estrés oxidativo (EO) como unión, que podría explicar parte de las consecuencias clínicas asociadas tanto a la fragilidad y sarcopenia como a la DM2. Nuestro objetivo fue estudiar la prevalencia de sarcopenia y fragilidad en una población adulta mayor con DM2 y determinar parámetros de EO en sangre para identificar su relación con la presencia de fragilidad y sarcopenia. Para ello se incluyeron 100 pacientes y se realizó una extracción sanguínea, una valoración de la composición corporal mediante bioimpedancia y el diagnóstico de sarcopenia mediante los criterios del European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Old People y de fragilidad mediante los criterios de Fried. La prevalencia de fragilidad encontrada ha sido del 15 %, mayor en las mujeres, y del 57 % en el caso de la prefragilidad, también mayor en el género femenino. Esta prevalencia ligeramente mayor a la obtenida en otros estudios epidemiológicos podría explicarse por el diagnóstico de DM2. En el caso de la sarcopenia, la prevalencia obtenida ha sido menor a la esperada probablemente por la gran presencia de obesidad en la cohorte y por la utilización de una bioimpedanica monofrecuencia que según estudios recientes parece no estar recomendada en geriatría. El EO se ha relacionado de forma significativa con la presencia de fragilidad, especialmente la carbonilación de proteínas y los valores obtenidos son mayores a los publicados por otros autores en la población geriátrica general. Estos resultados también podrían deberse al diagnóstico DM2 que presenta la cohorte. De entre los parámetros obtenidos a partir del análisis de composición corporal se han encontrado dos con una importante asociación con la fragilidad: el índice de masa grasa y el ángulo de fase. Los pacientes frágiles presentan un mayor índice de masa grasa, algo ya publicado en otros estudios clínicos y que podría deberse a la infiltración grasa del músculo esquelético en aquellos pacientes con índices de masa grasa elevados y que provoca una pérdida en la calidad y la funcionalidad muscular. El ángulo de fase, parámetro indicador de salud celular que presenta un importante valor pronóstico clínico disminuye en los frágiles respecto a los robustos. Por lo tanto, nuestro estudio muestra que la presencia de DM2 en la población geriátrica se asocia a una mayor prevalencia de fragilidad y a una mayor presencia de EO además de una relación entre la fragilidad y el EO. Estos resultados son de gran relevancia clínica por la repercusión que tienen estos diagnósticos sobre la calidad de vida y el pronóstico clínico de los pacientes con DM2.Aging has brought about an increase in the prevalence of age-related chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) and geriatric syndromes such as frailty and sarcopenia. T2D increases the risk of sarcopenia and frailty in the geriatric population and the diagnosis of sarcopenia and frailty is a risk factor for the development of diabetes. When studying the pathophysiological mechanisms of these pathologies, oxidative stress (OS) is found to be a common link which could explain part of the clinical consequences associated with frailty, sarcopenia and T2D. The present study aims to analyse the prevalence of sarcopenia and frailty in adults over 65 years of age with T2D and to determine biomarkers of OS in blood, malondialdehyde and protein carbonylation, to identify their relationship with the presence of frailty and sarcopenia. To this end, a total of 100 patients were included and their blood was drawn to determine biochemical and OS parameters, a body composition assessment utilising bioelectrical impedance, and a sarcopenia and frailty diagnosis; the former by using the criteria proposed by the European Working Group on Sarcopenia in Old People and the latter by employing those proposed by Fried. The obtained frailty prevalence has been 15 % in the complete cohort, higher in women, and 57 % in case of prefrailty, also higher in women. This slightly higher prevalence than that obtained in other epidemiological studies could be explained by the diagnosis of T2D. In the case of sarcopenia, the prevalence obtained has been considerably lower than expected, probably due to the large presence of obesity and the use of single-frequency bioelectrical impedance, which according to recent studies does not seem to be recommended in the geriatric population. OS has been significantly statistically related to the presence of frailty, especially in the case of protein carbonylation, and the obtained values are higher than those published by other authors in the general geriatric population. These results could also be due to the presence of T2D in the studied cohort. Among the body composition parameters obtained from the bioelectrical impedance, two of them have been found to have a significant association with frailty: fat mass index and phase angle. The frail patients in our study had a higher fat mass index, which has already been published in other clinical studies and that could be due to the fatty infiltration of skeletal muscle in patients with high fat mass indexes, which causes a loss of muscle quality and functionality. The phase angle, a cellular health indicator parameter that has an important clinical prognostic value, decreases in frail patients compared to robust patients. Therefore, our study shows that the presence of T2D in the geriatric population is associated with a higher prevalence of frailty and a higher presence of OS as well as a relationship between frailty and OS. These results are of great clinical relevance because of the considerable impact that these diagnoses have on the quality of life and clinical prognosis of patients with T2D

Time for a change

The circadian clock of Arabidopsis, a popular model organism for plants, is more complex than expected, with negative feedback loops based on the repression of gene expression having a less exclusive role than previously thought.Fil: Sanchez, Sabrina Elena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Yanovsky, Marcelo Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Parque Centenario. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires. Fundación Instituto Leloir. Instituto de Investigaciones Bioquímicas de Buenos Aires; Argentin

SVD-based Anatomy of Gene Expressions for Correlation Analysis in Arabidopsis thaliana

Gene co-expression analysis has been widely used in recent years for predicting unknown gene function and its regulatory mechanisms. The predictive accuracy depends on the quality and the diversity of data set used. In this report, we applied singular value decomposition (SVD) to array experiments in public databases to find that co-expression linkage could be estimated by a much smaller number of array data. Correlations of co-expressed gene were assessed using two regulatory mechanisms (feedback loop of the fundamental circadian clock and a global transcription factor Myb28), as well as metabolic pathways in the AraCyc database. Our conclusion is that a smaller number of informative arrays across tissues can suffice to reproduce comparable results with a state-of-the-art co-expression software tool. In our SVD analysis on Arabidopsis data set, array experiments that contributed most as the principal components included stamen development, germinating seed and stress responses on leaf