Factors Influencing the Success of E-Learning Implementation: A Study of Afghan-Postgraduate Students at UTM-Malaysia

Comprehending and utilizing information technology and online platforms are the dire need of todays’ educational era. Current research aims at investigating the factors influencing the successful implementation of e-learning use among Afghan-postgraduate student at University Technologi Malaysia. Particularly, centered on identifying students’ characteristics, design and content, and technological factors that affect E-learning environment. At total of seventy-two (n=72) postgraduate students from the faculty of education, engineering, science and management at Universiti Technologi Malaysia (UTM) participated in survey questionnaire. The findings resulted that most of the students have positive perception about the E-learning environment. In addition, the most influential factors are (1) students’ characteristics that contained motivation, computer skills and attitudes, (2) design & content with professed use of IT and quality of content, while (3) technology with effectiveness of IT and quality of technology have been graded as the lowest influential factors hindered the successful implementation of E-learning use. Specifically, students’ motivation, encouragement, and satisfaction are the key elements toward the successful implementation of E-learning and accomplished their learning activities better and easily than the traditional method. However, most of the learners revealed that before initiating into the E-learning environment, they need more assistance and training in E-learning environment than the traditional methods. Besides, using E-learning is more complicated during learning and teaching process. Finally, it is suggested that university authority and policymakers put into their curriculum to initiate some special workshops and seminars to the international students who are newly admitted to their desired field of studies at UTM Malaysia

Predictive Model for Blood Product Use in Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting

Objective: To build a clinical predictive model to determine the need for transfusing blood and its products in coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures in South East Asian population.STUDY Design: Analytical study.PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: Section of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, from January 2006 to October 2014.METHODOLOGY: Information on pre-, intra- and postoperative variables were collected for all adult patients who underwent on-pump CABG. The patients grouped into those who received blood and its components, and those who did not. Aunivariate as well as multivariate logistic model was built to determine the predictors of transfusion.Results: A total of 3,550 patients underwent CABG and males were dominant in both groups (75 vs. 93%). The transfusion rate was 56.4% (n=2001). Age (adjusted OR 1.03, p \u3c 0.001), obesity (1.50, p=0.001), tobacco use (1.29, p=0.001), and male gender (4.51, p \u3c 0.001) found to be a stronger predictor. Among preoperative comorbidities, diabetes (1.20, p=0.016), myocardial infarction (1.22, p=0.009), preoperative creatinine (1.12, p=0.033), and left main vessel disease of \u3e 50% (1.49, p \u3c 0.001) were independently associated with the outcome. Compared to elective cases, transfusion rates were high in urgent and emergent cases (OR: 1.93 and 3.36 respectively, p \u3c 0.001 for both).CONCLUSION: Age, male gender, obesity, tobacco use, diabetes, myocardial infarction, high creatinine, urgent and emergent cases were independent predictors of transfusion in CABG procedure. This model can be utilized for preoperative risk stratification of patients and their management to improve the outcomes

Virtual Window: A Peephole into another World

This project investigates an effective means of streaming and displaying complex 3D scenes over a low-bandwidth wireless network to a remote PDA device, which has limited graphical capabilities. The PDA is also made position-aware, allowing user interaction to occur with a new degree of freedom, mapping real world movements such as rotation to virtual environment changes. Rendering techniques such as silhouetting optimise PDA display rate, but slow PDA processing speed means image compression to reduce network latency is unfeasible. In spite of any technical limitations, however, preliminary user testing shows that the concept and methods of interaction developed are intuitive, with good potential for further system development

Catalytic removal of Alizarin Red using chromium manganese oxide nanorods: degradation and kinetic studies

Dye removal through photocatalytic degradation employing nanomaterials as catalysts is a growing research area. In current studies, photocatalytic alizarin red (AR) dye degradation has been investigated by designing a series of Cr based manganese oxide nanomaterials (MH1–MH5). Synthesized nanomaterials were characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive x-ray, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller, and photoluminescence techniques and were utilized for photocatalytic AR dye degradation under UV light. AR dye degradation was monitored by UV–visible spectroscopy and percent degradation was studied for the effect of time, catalyst dose, different dye concentrations, and different pH values of dye solution. All the catalysts have shown more than 80% dye degradation exhibiting good catalytic efficiencies for dye removal. The catalytic pathway was analyzed by applying the kinetic model. A pseudo second-order model was found the best fitted kinetic model indicating a chemically-rate controlled mechanism. Values of constant R2 for all the factors studied were close to unity depicting a good correlation between experimental data

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Students’ Perception of Alternative Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review

Many studies have been conducted on the implementation of alternative assessments on students. However, this study is carried out to explore definitions, characteristics, and students’ perceptions of alternative assessment at university and school level. One hundred and seventeen (n=117) journal articles were searched through different search engines, and only twenty-six (n=24) recent and relevant publications published between years 2002 to 2018 were included in this study, and remaining are excluded. Among inclusions, there were ten (n=10) quantitative researches, six (n=6) qualitative, seven (n=7) mix-mode, and one (1) review paper. The overall respondents of the studies were two thousand eight hundred and seven (n=2807). Most of the studies were carried in Asian countries such as Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Bosnia, Thailand, and Egypt, and some of the studies were conducted in the USA, UK, Scotland, and Netherlands. The findings reveal that the learners have a positive perception of implementing the alternative assessment. Furthermore, the findings of some studies revealed that alternative assessment is preferable, while other researches indicated the alternative assessment favorably. Besides, some studies have suggested some recommendations for the implementation of alternative assessment

Students’ Perception of Alternative Assessment: A Systematic Literature Review

Many studies have been conducted on the implementation of alternative assessments on students. However, this study is carried out to explore definitions, characteristics, and students’ perceptions of alternative assessment at university and school level. One hundred and seventeen (n=117) journal articles were searched through different search engines, and only twenty-six (n=24) recent and relevant publications published between years 2002 to 2018 were included in this study, and remaining are excluded. Among inclusions, there were ten (n=10) quantitative researches, six (n=6) qualitative, seven (n=7) mix-mode, and one (1) review paper. The overall respondents of the studies were two thousand eight hundred and seven (n=2807). Most of the studies were carried in Asian countries such as Indonesia, Iran, Turkey, Malaysia, Bosnia, Thailand, and Egypt, and some of the studies were conducted in the USA, UK, Scotland, and Netherlands. The findings reveal that the learners have a positive perception of implementing the alternative assessment. Furthermore, the findings of some studies revealed that alternative assessment is preferable, while other researches indicated the alternative assessment favorably. Besides, some studies have suggested some recommendations for the implementation of alternative assessment

A review on mathematical modelling of Direct Internal Reforming- Solid Oxide Fuel Cells

The Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) anode materials are catalytically active for Direct Internal Reforming (DIR) thus avoiding the need of external reformer. However, practical application of DIR in SOFCs requires careful system design and selection of operating conditions to avoid cell degradation due to carbon depositions and other impurities. In recent years, numerous simulation studies, besides experimental investigations, have been carried out to understand the physical and electrochemical complexities of DIR-based SOFC systems in order to develop viable designs and optimize the operating conditions before conducting costly experiments. The objective of this work is to review the present status of DIR-SOFC modeling efforts and consolidate their findings in order to highlight the unresolved problems for future research in this field. A specific focus of this review has been given to the multiscale mathematical modeling. Pre-reforming techniques, influences of the chemical and electro-chemical reaction kinetics and operational variables along with future prospects of the DIR-SOFC have been also reviewed and discussed

Using Native Tongue Mnemonics To Enhance English Learning

An individual\u27s language and culture play an important part in their learning process [9]. In this paper, we develop a mobile application called “Mnemorizer” to help international students learn English vocabulary for standardized tests. We use mnemonics and gamification to aid learning and present results that indicate that native tongue mnemonics are more effective than mnemonics in English. Initial results of this ongoing project provide motivation for our future work, which will leverage crowdsourcing techniques to build a database of mnemonic devices to support a broader subset of languages and cultures

A review on mathematical modelling of direct internal reforming- solid oxide fuel cells

The Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) anode materials are catalytically active for Direct Internal Reforming (DIR) thus avoiding the need of external reformer. However, practical application of DIR in SOFCs requires careful system design and selection of operating conditions to avoid cell degradation due to carbon depositions and other impurities. In recent years, numerous simulation studies, besides experimental investigations, have been carried out to understand the physical and electrochemical complexities of DIR-based SOFC systems in order to develop viable designs and optimize the operating conditions before conducting costly experiments. The objective of this work is to review the present status of DIR-SOFC modeling efforts and consolidate their findings in order to highlight the unresolved problems for future research in this field. A specific focus of this review has been given to the multiscale mathematical modeling. Pre-reforming techniques, influences of the chemical and electrochemical reaction kinetics and operational variables along with future prospects of the DIR-SOFC have been also reviewed and discussed