Student Engagement and Assessment Modes: A Study

The aim of this project is to attempt a factorial analysis of the congruence amongst three layers of assessments of Oral Presentation: Expert, Self, and Peer. Participants included graduate and undergraduate students of Asian background studying Research Writing at a technological university. The research instrument consisted of a set of assessment checklists with weighted and specified criteria for Expert, Self and Peer assessment of research presentations. Broader criteria were based on the following four factors: Use of spoken media, Use of visuals, Interrelationships, and Communicative Effect. Participants received training and were involved in a practice session on self and peer assessment before engaging in the assessment tasks. While the pilot study is unable to conclusively establish congruence among the modes of assessment, it is expected that results from a wider database would indicate the nature of well-defined assessment criteria and the ways they can be effectively communicated to assessors. The present study suggests that the differences in ratings given by peers and experts are not due to a lack of capability on the part of students, but due to lack of orientation and training. It is necessary to evolve criteria that are well-documented to enable students to evaluate their own performance as well as the performance of their peers as effectively as done by experts

Developing Oral Presentation Competence in Professional Contexts: A Design-Based Collaborative Approach

The need to develop oral presentation skills with reference to students’ specialized professional contexts has been well-recognised. Attempts have also been made to develop collaboration between engineering faculty and language teaching professionals. In this paper, we describe an experiment where students were given an opportunity to demonstrate their technical know-ho and integrate it with oral presentation skills. The paper discusses specifics of collaboration between the engineering faculty and the language teachers. Specifications for development of a transparent assessment framework have also been elaborated. It is concluded that such design-based approach is more likely to develop skills required of students to perform in competitive communicative environments.

Some results related to constrained non-differentiable (non- smooth) pseudolinear minimization problems

This paper deals with the minimization of a class of non-differentiable (non- smooth) pseudolinear functions over a closed and convex set subject to linear inequality constraints. The properties of locally Lipschitz pseudolinear functions are used to establish several Lagrange multiplier characterizations of the solution set of the minimization problem. We derive certain conditions, under which an efficient solution becomes a properly efficient solution of a constrained non-differentiable minimization problem

Estimation of Reliability Parameters of a Complex Repairable System

In this paper estimation of reliability parameters of a complex repairable system is considered and semi-markov process is used in analyzing various reliability parameters such as Transition Probabilities, Mean sojourn times, MTSF, Availability and Busy period of repairman in repairing the failed units. In the past, Arora et-al[2] has done reliability analysis of two unit standby redundant system with constrained repair time. Gupta et-al [6] has worked on a compound redundant system involving human failure. Rander et-al [2] has evaluated the cost analysis of two dissimilar cold standby systems with preventive maintenance and replacement of standby units. A pioneer work in this field was done by Gopalan [1] and Osaki [3] by performing analysis of warm standby system and parallel system with bivariate exponential life respectively. Earlier, Pathak et al [7&8] studied reliability parameters of a main unit with its supporting units and also compared the results with two different distributions. In this paper, Chapman-Kolmogorov equations are used to develop recursive relations. Also the involvement of preventive maintenance in the model increases the reliability of the functioning units. In the end a particular case is also taken for discussion

Analysis of Mass Based and Density Based Clustering Techniques on Numerical Datasets

Clustering is the techniques adopted by data mining tools across a range of application . It provides several algorithms that can assess large data set based on specific parameters & group related points  . This paper gives comparative analysis of density based clustering algorithms and mass based clustering algorithms. DBSCAN [15] is a base algorithm for density based clustering techniques. One of the advantages of using these techniques is that method does not require the number of clusters to be given a prior and it can detect the clusters of different shapes and sizes from large amount of data which contains noise and outliers. OPTICS [14] on the other hand does not produce a clustering of a data set explicitly, but instead creates an augmented ordering of the database representing its density based clustering structure. Mass based clustering algorithm   mass estimation technique is used (it is alternate of density based clustering) .In Mass based clustering algorithm [22] there are also core regions and noise points are used as a parameter. We analyze the algorithms in terms of the parameters essential for creating meaningful clusters. All the algorithms are tested using numerical data sets for low as well as high dimensional data sets. Keywords: Mass Based (DEMassDBSCAN) ,DBSCAN,OPTICS

Osmotically Regulated Two-Compartment Asymmetric Membrane Capsules for Simultaneous Controlled Release of Anti-Hypertensive Drugs

In the present study, asymmetric membrane capsules (AMCs) with two compartments were successfully developed for simultaneous delivery of two poorly water-soluble drugs, Atenolol and Amlodipine Besylate, by using solubility modulation approach. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) before dissolution showed presence of outer dense region and inner porous region for the prepared asymmetric membrane and the pore size increased after dissolution for both outer and inner layer. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) showed no incompatibility between the drug(s) and the excipients used in the study. The developed system was able to control the release of ATN and AMB by increasing the solubility through buffering agents of different strengths (0.25N to 1.0N). As the level of buffering agent was increased, the solubility of drugs also increased inside the asymmetric membrane capsule. The developed system was independent of the agitation intensity of the dissolution fluid but was dependent on the polymer diffusibility and osmotic pressure of the media, which clearly stated that osmotic pumping was the primary mechanism of drug(s) release from AMCs. The results of in-vitro demonstration of effect of membrane thickness on dissolution fluid entering AMCs showed that as the membrane thickness increased the volume of dissolution fluid entering into AMC decreased. The release kinetic studies of different formulations of AMCs showed that formulation code six, which consists of the highest amount of osmotic agents and optimum amount of buffering agents, was the best formulation, and it followed zero order release kinetics (r2=0.9990 for ATN and r2=0.9988 for AMB)

Transmission dynamics of breast cancer through Caputo Fabrizio fractional derivative operator with real data

In this paper, we studied the dynamical behavior of various phases of breast cancer using the Caputo Fabrizio (CF) fractional order derivative operator. The Picard-Lindelof (PL) method was used to investigate the existence and uniqueness of the proposed system. Moreover, we investigated the stability of the system in the sense of Ulam Hyers (UH) criteria. In addition, the two-step Adams-Bashforth (AB) technique was employed to simulate our methodology. The fractional model was then simulated using real data, which includes reported breast cancer incidences among females of Saudi Arabia from 2004 to 2016. The real data was used to determine the values of the parameters that were fitted using the least squares method. Also, residuals were computed for the integer as well as fractional-order models. Based on the results obtained, the CF model's efficacy rates were greater than those of the existing classical model. Graphical representations were used to illustrate numerical results by examining different choices of fractional order parameters, then the dynamical behavior of several phases of breast cancer was quantified to show how fractional order affects breast cancer behavior and how chemotherapy rate affects breast cancer behavior. We provided graphical results for a breast cancer model with effective parameters, resulting in fewer future incidences in the population of phases Ⅲ and Ⅳ as well as the disease-free state. Chemotherapy often raises the risk of cardiotoxicity, and our proposed model output reflected this. The goal of this study was to reduce the incidence of cardiotoxicity in chemotherapy patients while also increasing the pace of patient recovery. This research has the potential to significantly improve outcomes of patients and provide information of treatment strategies for breast cancer patients