The Effectiveness of Lesson Study as a Professional Development Approach for Omani Teachers

This study is proposed to adopt Lesson Study (LS) as a collaborative professional development approach. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate whether the Lesson Study approach has an effect on teacher’s professional development across the Lesson Study classroom conferences. Data collected through mixed methods resources including audio-recording of classroom observations, audio recording of post-class conferences and my field notes. The data disclosed an increase improvement in teachers’ teaching quality practices throughout the Lesson Study cycles. The study revealed also that there was a gradual increase in the teachers’ critical reflection. This study, as one of the initial trials to be implemented in the Omani context, may contribute to the in-service professional development. The study may encourage stakeholders in the MOE (Ministry of Education) to take the lead in adopting the Lesson Study approach within the current in-service professional programme. Keywords: Professional development, Lesson Study, Bloom Taxonomy, mediation, scaffolding DOI: 10.7176/JEP/14-26-07 Publication date:September 30th 202

TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT PERFORMANCE IN OMANI SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SMES)

Purpose of the study: The objective of the study was to examine the implementation of Total Quality Management (TQM) in SMEs, by enabling them to benchmark their progress, overcome the barriers, and meet the challenges. In contrast to most previous studies, this research examined the TQM practices-performance relationships by investigating the effects of TQM practices on the performance of Omani SMEs. Methodology: A survey was performed on 200 respondents from selected SMEs in Oman. Statistical software, SPSS 15.0 was used to process the data, which consisted of chi-square test of independence for a contingency table and correspondence analysis. The hypotheses were examined at two significance levels: α = 0.01, 0.05. Other statistical tests (e.g., path analysis and structural equation modeling), which are inherently more powerful than those used in the present study, could not be used due to the small population size. Main Findings: It was revealed that leadership factor was the most critical strategic factor and was vital in ensuring a successful implementation of TQM in an organization. The other elements that were considered as critical are quality goals and policy, continuous improvement, and organizational culture. Implications of this study: The suggestions from the SMEs allow the relevant Omani agency to design an effective TQM policy to increase the performance. Novelty of this study: This study demonstrates the steps that need to be taken by the management of Omani Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to succeed. The findings enables the Omani SMEs’ management to plan the phases ahead of time to be familiar with the circumstances and take suitable action to rise above any obstacle that they would confront in their journey

Economic and Social Impact of Globalisation of the Developing Countries

The objectives of the study are set to guide the investigation process and sharpen the focus on the problem. To develop the research, a method would be used to carry out the study focusing on the globalisation and the problem of poverty. In this connection, a simple model using Human Development Indexes will be used to highlight the case studies of Egypt and Jordan. This method will reflect the inter-relationship between development and growth. Indicators of Human poverty including variables such as percentage of adult illiteracy rate, life expectancy, external debt services payments and external trade are used. Following this chapter the second chapter reviews the literature relevant to the area of the study. The beginning of this chapter highlights the different views on globalisation. The chapter also investigates the relationship between globalisation and development. Though the chapter introduces the literature from a general perspective view, taking example from the scenes of world development, the sharp focus on the problem comes with the literature reviewing economic problems of developing countries. The third chapter focuses on the methodology and models. This chapter highlights the relationship between globalisation, development and poverty through variables that have strong effect on development and poverty reduction such as income growth, development and poverty. Chapter four will focus on the present and expected image of poverty in the era of globalisation. This will enable the author to review the state of poverty in the world with closer focus on the developing countries. Finally, the last chapter will focus on the Arab countries as part of the developing world in general and cases of Egypt and Jordan in particular. Then, will draw conclusion and lessons learned and suggest some recommendations for the developing countries with emphasis on Arab countries, wherever it is necessary, in finding ways to deal with such situation

ICONA: Inter Cluster ONOS Network Application

Several Network Operating Systems (NOS) have been proposed in the last few years for Software Defined Networks; however, a few of them are currently offering the resiliency, scalability and high availability required for production environments. Open Networking Operating System (ONOS) is an open source NOS, designed to be reliable and to scale up to thousands of managed devices. It supports multiple concurrent instances (a cluster of controllers) with distributed data stores. A tight requirement of ONOS is that all instances must be close enough to have negligible communication delays, which means they are typically installed within a single datacenter or a LAN network. However in certain wide area network scenarios, this constraint may limit the speed of responsiveness of the controller toward network events like failures or congested links, an important requirement from the point of view of a Service Provider. This paper presents ICONA, a tool developed on top of ONOS and designed in order to extend ONOS capability in network scenarios where there are stringent requirements in term of control plane responsiveness. In particular the paper describes the architecture behind ICONA and provides some initial evaluation obtained on a preliminary version of the tool.Comment: Paper submitted to a conferenc

MultiPaths Revisited - A novel approach using OpenFlow-enabled devices

This thesis presents novel approaches enhancing the performance of computer networks using multipaths. Our enhancements take the form of congestion- aware routing protocols. We present three protocols called MultiRoute, Step- Route, and finally PathRoute. Each of these protocols leverage both local and remote congestion statistics and build different representations (or views) of the network congestion by using an innovative representation of congestion for router-router links. These congestion statistics are then distributed via an aggregation protocol to other routers in the network. For many years, multipath routing protocols have only been used in simple situations, such as Link Aggregation and/or networks where paths of equal cost (and therefore equal delay) exist. But, paths of unequal costs are often discarded to the benefit of shortest path only routing because it is known that paths of unequal length present different delays and therefore cause out of order packets which cause catastrophic network performances. Further, multipaths become highly beneficial when alternative paths are selected based on the network congestion. But, no realistic solution has been proposed for congestion-aware multipath networks. We present in this thesis a method which selects alternative paths based on network congestion and completely avoids the issue of out of order packets by grouping packets into flows and binding them to a single path for a limited duration. The implementation of these protocols relies heavily on OpenFlow and NOX. OpenFlow enables network researchers to control the behavior of their network equipment by specifying rules in the routers flow table. NOX provides a simple Application Programming Interface (API) to program a routers flow table. Therefore by using OpenFlow and NOX, we are able to define new routing protocols like the ones which we will present in this thesis. We show in this thesis that grouping packets together, while not optimal, still provides a significant increase in network performance. More precisely we show that our protocols can, in some cases, achieve up to N times the throughput of Shortest Path (SP), where N is the number of distinct paths of identical throughput from source to destination. We also show that our protocols provide more predictable throughput than simple hash-based routing algorithms. Todays networks provide more and more connections between any source- destination pair. Most of these connections remain idle until some failure occurs. Using the protocols proposed in this thesis, networks could leverage the added bandwidth provided by these currently idle connections. Therefore, we could increase the overall performance of current networks without replacing the existing hardware

Solution for transient heat conduction problem with low Biot number

Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Heat Transfer, Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics, Malta, 16-18 July, 2012.Mechanical systems such as brakes and clutches experience short periods of intense heating. The heat lost from the exposed surfaces is small or even negligible compared to the frictional heat generated during a single engagement. The Biot number for such systems is known to be very low. The general transient solution is often obtained by the superposition of a particular solution and the solution of the corresponding homogenous problem. This paper presents the finite element realization of this method when the Biot number is low.dc201

The Level of Psychological Anxiety of the Coronavirus Pandemic among Omani, Bahraini and Residents Families and their Relationship to some Demographic Variables

هدفت الدراسة الحالية إلى تحديد مستوى القلق النفسي تجاه فيروس كورونا (COVID-19) لدى الأسر العُمانية والأسر البحرينية والمقيمين، وتحديد فروق مستوى القلق تجاه فيروس كورونا تعزى للجنس والمؤهل العلمي والعمر وطبيعة العمل. وتكونت عينة الدراسة من 2107 مستجيبًا تم اختيارهم بالطريقة العشوائية. وتم استخدام استبانة للقلق من إعداد الباحثات. وقد أظهرت النتائج أن مستوى القلق جاء متوسطًا، كما أظهرت النتائج عدم وجود فروق في مستوى القلق بين الأسر العمانية والبحرينية، بينما كان مستوى القلق مرتفعًا لدى المقيمين مقارنة بالمواطنين في كلا الدولتين. وأظهرت النتائج أن الإناث هن الأكثر قلقًا من الذكور. وحسب العمر فقد كان الذين أعمارهم أكثر من 40 سنة أقل قلقًا من غيرهم. وقد اتضح أن أصحاب المؤهل العلمي المتدنِ (الثانوي وأقل) أكثر قلقًا من ذوي المؤهلات التعليمية العليا. وحسب طبيعة العمل فقد اتضح أن العاطلين عن العمل أكثر قلقًا من العاملين والمتقاعدين. وقدمت الدراسة مجموعة من التوصيات.This study aimed to identify the level of psychological anxiety about the Corona Virus (COVID-19) among Omani, Bahraini and Residents families, and to identify if there are differences in the level of anxiety due to gender, qualification, age, and job title. The study sample consisted of 2107 respondents, which were selected randomly. An anxiety questionnaire that was developed by the researchers was used as the main research tool. The results showed that the level of anxiety was moderate. The study also showed no differences in the level of anxiety between Omani and Bahraini families, while the level of anxiety was high among residents compared to citizens in both countries. The results indicated that females a have higher level of anxiety than males do. In addition, respondents who were above 40 years have lower anxiety than others. As for qualification, the study showed that respondents who have a secondary level qualification (or less) are feeling anxious more than those with higher qualifications. Finally, the unemployed respondents were found to be more anxious than those who have jobs and the retirees. This study suggested a number of recommendations

Planning for entrepreneurialism in a rentier state economy: Entrepreneurship education for economic diversification in Oman

There is a growing interest in entrepreneurialism as a way to develop and diversify economies around the world. Entrepreneurship Education (EE) is believed by some governments to have the potential to develop entrepreneurial skills and knowledge and change students’ mindsets and attitudes regarding SME start-ups, as one way to create a more entrepreneurial economy. This thesis investigated the potential of a higher education entrepreneurship education programme to expand the number of entrepreneurs in Oman, as one element of the government’s skill formation strategy, and thereby contribute to economic diversification. A mixed method approach was adopted, comprising a small-scale survey and semi-structured interviews, to generate data on stakeholder understandings of entrepreneurialism and their perceptions of the programme. The thesis reveals that understandings of entrepreneurialism and the development of entrepreneurial attitudes are influenced by a wide range of political, economic, social, and cultural factors, which in Oman’s rentier state context have particular implications for the way the Entrepreneurship Education Programme (EEP) is implemented and then received by its users. Ultimately, the programme, in its current form, appears to influence the way in which the students in this study understand entrepreneurship, but seems unlikely to deliver the entrepreneurial skills and mindset changes needed to grow the number of students intending to engage in entrepreneurial activity following graduation. The findings draw attention to the limitations of education and skill policies based on Human Capital Theory (HCT) and guided by ‘supply side’ imperatives. Instead, the thesis emphasises the importance of considering contextual specificities when designing and implementing national educational policies. It encourages, moreover, further research to improve policy and practice with regard to the implementation of entrepreneurship education programmes. The current policy focus needs to be extended to consider the wider economic and societal context for diversifying the economy