Teaching ELT Course Materials at Tertiary Level: Suitability and Challenges

Recently, students are flocking in a big number for job-oriented courses in different private universities in Bangladesh, and they need to take Basic English and Communicative courses in the very beginning of the semesters. Even after taking these courses, the reality check investigation of the standard of English of the students of different private universities tells a different story. The university authority concerned grapples with this problem, and has taken steps to address the new realities; one of them is the design of course materials even though ELT course books and materials are in rampant in the market with the time of globalization in Bangladesh. The present study takes a research-study of a private university in Bangladesh, and demonstrates that a book entitled as “Complied English Course Book” brought to the English Language Institute with concentrated focus on four language skills, following exercise-based stress, through communicate approach proves to be successful in a greater way

Approaches to the Teaching Second Language Writing at Tertiary Level in Bangladesh Private Universities

Currently, the South-Asian regions have ardently felt the presence of approaches to writing instruction, initially introduced and developed in North-America. To keep pace with the times, the major Bangladeshi private universities have adopted these approaches to see whether the approaches will be appropriately feasible to have successful transmission and integration into the new backdrop of Bangladesh. Based on the discussion of current approaches to teaching writing, this paper showcases the strengths and weaknesses of the product, process, and genre approaches to writing and proposes an integrated one to teaching English writing to university students. It attempts to address the major problem related to University entrants’ English writing: linguistic accuracy. Based on an observational report and an interventional study of university students pursuing their majors in manifold disciplines, the paper further argues that the three approaches are complementary to be the best suited to serve Bangladeshi students learning to write correctly in English

BEst (Biomarker Estimation): Health Biomarker Estimation Non-invasively and Ubiquitously

This dissertation focuses on the non-invasive assessment of blood-hemoglobin levels. The primary goal of this research is to investigate a reliable, affordable, and user-friendly point-of-care solution for hemoglobin-level determination using fingertip videos captured by a smartphone. I evaluated videos obtained from five patient groups, three from the United States and two from Bangladesh, under two sets of lighting conditions. In the last group, based on human tissue optical transmission modeling data, I used near-infrared light-emitting diode sources of three wavelengths. I developed novel image processing techniques for fingertip video analysis to estimate hemoglobin levels. I studied video images creating image histogram and subdividing each image into multiple blocks. I determined the region of interest in a video and created photoplethysmogram signals. I created features from image histograms and PPG signals. I used the Partial Least Squares Regression and Support Vector Machine Regression tools to analyze input features and to build hemoglobin prediction models. Using data from the last and largest group of patients studied, I was able to develop a model with a strong linear correlation between estimated and clinically-measured hemoglobin levels. With further data and methodological refinements, the approach I have developed may be able to define a clinically accurate public health applicable tool for hemoglobin level and other blood constituent assessment

The Era of Umbilical Cord Blood Transplantation and Banking

DOI: 10.3329/bsmmuj.v3i1.5516BSMMU J 2010; 3(1): 47-5