What is an objective structured practical examination in anatomy?     

Ahmed Yaqinuddin  Muhammad Zafar  Muhammad Faisal Ikram  Paul Ganguly 《Anatomical sciences education》2013,6(2):125-133

Assessing teaching‐learning outcomes in anatomical knowledge is a complex task that requires the evaluation of multiple domains: theoretical, practical, and clinical knowledge. In general, theoretical knowledge is tested by a written examination system constituted by multiple choice questions (MCQs) and/or short answer questions (SAQ). The assessment of practical knowledge (three‐dimensional anatomical concepts) involves oral, spot, or objective structured practical examinations (OSPE). Finally, the application of anatomical knowledge to patients is tested mainly through objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE). The major focus of this study is the OSPE. Although many schools challenge students using this tool in practical examinations in the early phase of the curriculum, the true meaning of OSPE is frequently forgotten and it becomes, in reality, a spot examination. This article, for the first time, describes how the concept of the OSPE has evolved and is currently being used to assess the practical domain of anatomical knowledge in a problem‐based curriculum at Alfaisal University College of Medicine. In addition, it describes the main differences from the spot examination, which is normally used in traditional medical curricula. The authors believe that the OSPE remains the most efficient tool to assess the practical aspects of anatomical knowledge in a system where basic knowledge is integrated with the clinical or functional part of anatomy. However, this contention only holds true if the OSPE process revolves around structured objectives. Anat Sci Educ 6: 125–133. © 2012 American Association of Anatomists.  相似文献   

A Study of the Causes of User Dissatisfaction in Academic Libraries: A Case of University Students in a Developing Country     

Muhammad Jaber Hossain 《图书馆管理杂志》2013,53(6):462-482

ABSTRACT

This article investigates students’ perceptions and expectations of service quality to understand the causes of dissatisfaction with the services delivered by the university libraries in Bangladesh. A total of 623 usable responses were collected from ten public and private university libraries in the country. The survey data were collected using a modified five dimensional SERVQUAL-based questionnaire, consisting of 26 service items. To determine the level of user satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the service items, the study used the disconfirmation theory with slight modification. It was found that users’ unrealistically high expectation for quality services is one of the key sources of their dissatisfaction. The other causes of dissatisfaction include lack of user-employee relationships, lack of attention to users’ needs, an external communication gap between library and users, lack of attention to enhance staffs’ performance, etc. Based on the service deficiencies identified, the study offers some measures that could be used as a way to improve service quality, and thereby user satisfaction.  相似文献   

Sorption of ammonium and phosphate from aqueous solution by biochar derived from phytoremediation plants   总被引：2，自引：0，他引：2  

Zheng ZENG  Song-da ZHANG  Ting-qiang LI  Feng-liang ZHAO  Zhen-li HE  He-ping ZHAO  Xiao-e YANG  Hai-long WANG  Jing ZHAO  Muhammad Tariq RAFIQ 《Journal of Zhejiang University. Science. B》2013,14(12):1152-1161

The study on biochar derived from plant biomass for environmental applications is attracting more and more attention. Twelve sets of biochar were obtained by treating four phytoremediation plants, Salix rosthornii Seemen, Thalia dealbata, Vetiveria zizanioides, and Phragmites sp., sequentially through pyrolysis at 500 °C in a N2 environment, and under different temperatures(500, 600, and 700 °C) in a CO2 environment. The cation exchange capacity and specific surface area of biochar varied with both plant species and pyrolysis temperature. The magnesium(Mg) content of biochar derived from T. dealbata(TC) was obviously higher than that of the other plant biochars. This biochar also had the highest sorption capacity for phosphate and ammonium. In terms of biomass yields, adsorption capacity, and energy cost, T. dealbata biochar produced at 600 °C(TC600) is the most promising sorbent for removing contaminants(N and P) from aqueous solution. Therefore, T. dealbata appears to be the best candidate for phytoremediation application as its biomass can make a good biochar for environmental cleaning.  相似文献   

Mining movies for song sequences with video based music genre identification system     

Sher Muhammad Doudpota  Sumanta Guha  Junaid Baber 《Information processing & management》2013

Musical sequences with actors dancing and lip-synching to songs sung by playback singers are integral parts, particularly of South Asian movies. Fans seek out movies for their songs and they often seek songs of a particular genre. In fact, song and dance sequence of South Asian movies are an industry of their own. Given the huge numbers of movies produced in South Asia over the past decades, most of which are in digital archives, it is an important problem to automatically extract and categorise their musical sequences. This paper proposes a system for musical sequences extraction from movies. Our method invokes an SVM-based classifier and makes as well a novel application of probabilistic timed automaton to distinguish musical sequences from non-musical. Our system analyses both audio and video signals to give a classifier that not only extracts musical sequences from movies but identifies their genre. We achieved a recall of 93.24% with precision of 87.34% in song extraction when applied on 10 popular Bollywood movies. An accuracy of 89.5% has been achieved on Bollywood song genre identification.  相似文献   

Variations in perceptions of the learning environment and approaches to studying among university students in Pakistan     

Raza Ullah  John T. E. Richardson  Muhammad Hafeez 《Prospects》2013,43(2):165-186

In Western countries, university students adopt various approaches to studying depending on how they perceive their learning environment. Their perceptions and approaches are related to demographic and contextual factors such as age, subject of study, gender, and year of study. This study looked for similar relationships in Pakistani students. A survey, administered to 494 male and 418 female undergraduates in four subject areas across four years of study at two universities in Pakistan, addressed their perceptions of the learning environment, learning preferences, motivation, and approaches to studying. Consistent with Western research, students in the arts and social sciences perceived their programmes more positively and were more likely to adopt a deep approach to studying, compared to students in science and technology or business and management. Contrary to Western research, students’ perceptions of their learning environment varied with age and year of study, but their approaches to studying did not. Gender differences were found in their perceptions and motivation. These variations appear to be specific to the context of Pakistan.  相似文献   

Dynamic voltage regulation and power export in a distribution system using distributed generation     

Aamir Hanif  Muhammad Ahmed Choudhry 《浙江大学学报(A卷英文版)》2009,10(10):1523-1531

The major aim of power quality （PQ） enhancing techniques is to maintain a specified voltage magnitude at a desired frequency for sensitive loads irrespective of faults on the power distribution network. The dynamic voltage restorer （DVR） is a device used to mitigate voltage sags to regulate load voltage. This paper presents a mathematical model for leading series voltage injection to mitigate sags thereby achieving the improvement of the utility power factor as well as power sharing between the DVR and utility. The power sharing will be as per requirement to compensate the sags considering the available distributed generation （DG）. The approach of mitigating voltage sags using the concept of leading series voltage injection is suitable for those locations where phase shift in the voltage will not cause any problem. The MATLAB/SIMULINK SimPowerSystem toolbox has been used to obtain simulation results to verify the proposed mathematical model.  相似文献   

Critical considerations for planning and implementing a CALL program     

Muhammad Kamarul Kabilan 《美中教育评论》2009,6(11):65-74,86

The field of Computer Assisted Language Learning （CALL） has transformed dramatically--from the days of the behaviourist approach that dominated CALL in the 1970s to the dynamism of Interactive approach in the 1990s under the immense influence of information communication technology （ICT）. Regardless of these periodic changes and improvements, successful implementation of CALL programs in schools decisively hinges on critical assessment and decisions that are undertaken by schools. As such, the responsibility of the technology adopters in this respect must reflect school＇s aspirations and understandably, students＇ abilities, interests and needs This paper attempts to clarify these issues through a case study of implementation of CALL in an urban secondary school in Malaysia. The outcome of the case study establishes critical considerations that need to be arbitrated to successfully implement CALL programs for English language teaching （ELT） at the school level.  相似文献   

Experimental tests used for treatment of red weathering crusts in disintegrated granite – Egypt     

Muhammad El-Gohary   《Journal of Cultural Heritage》2009,10(4):471-479

Rock weathering is defined as the process of rocks alteration as a result of the adjustment of its internal constituents by the action of physical, chemical and biological factors, to the prevailing conditions of the atmosphere and in the environment. In humid polluted areas “red weathering” is one of the major deterioration forms that characterize most granitic rocks. Several intervention steps are required to remove and treat all surfaces affected by this form. It is one of the most aggressive forms of deterioration which are essentially composed of some complex species of clay minerals “Kaolinite, Illite, Montmorillonite and Tosudite”, in addition to some species of salts as “Gypsum” pigmented by “Hematite” as a colorant. After several investigatin techniques, these crusts need several intervention and conservation steps to remove and eliminate the aggressive effects resulted from the red crusts through three essential steps: “cleaning, gap filling and strengthening and stabilizing”. After evaluating all materials and methods that were performed by “DBN, SEM, EDX, and AAS”, the present study suggests that the most suitable cleaning methods are composed of three essential steps “dry and vacuum cleaning (DVC), ultra-sonic cleaning (USC), poultice cleaning (PC)”. Furthermore, the elected gap filling material composed of “Araldite AY-103” mixed with “Granite powder as petro-filler.” Finally, different evaluation methods proved that “Wacker H” is the most suitable strengthening and stabilizing material for consolidation purpose.  相似文献   

The social background of Makerere University students and the potential for cost sharing     

Muhammad K. Mayanja 《Higher Education》1998,36(1):21-41

The social background of Makerere students was analysed in order to gain some insight in the distribution of scarce higher education opportunities in Uganda and assess the ability of the students to finance part of their education cost in the process of massifying higher education without diluting the quality of instruction. The findings were that students from well to-do learned families in the more prosperous districts were enjoying the existing performance based subsidies (PBS) and the privately sponsored places and programs (PSPP) which Makerere University had introduced. The interaction of the social and school system acted to reinforce the inequalities at all stages starting from family background, the primary and secondary schools as well as the universities under the present PBS system of admission.The study recommends that while government must remain with the primary responsibility to fund higher education, the public subsidy should become more sensitive to equity and if need be introduced to cost sharing with capacity for positive discrimination. In order to implement this, the existing PBS should gradually be replaced by an equity based subsidy (EBS) starting with 50% of the funds. The funds for EBS should be allocated to the districts which should develop capacity for identification of the most needy students to get the EBS awards. Students from low income families should compete for both PBS at national level and EBS at their district levels. A loan scheme is also recommended for students who may not be sponsored under PBS and EBS as well as for living expenses which should be assumed by the beneficiaries.  相似文献   

Effects of biotic and abiotic factors on forest biomass fractions     

Renfei Chen  Jinzhi Ran  Weigang Hu  Longwei Dong  Mingfei Ji  Xin Jia  Jingli Lu  Haiyang Gong  Muhammad Aqeel  Shuran Yao  Lizhe An  Jin-Sheng He  Karl J Niklas  Jianming Deng 《国家科学评论(英文版)》2021,8(10)

The extent to which key factors at the global scale influence plant biomass allocation patterns remains unclear. Here, we provide a theory about how biotic and abiotic factors influence plant biomass allocation and evaluate its predictions using a large global database for forested communities. Our analyses confirm theoretical predictions that temperature, precipitation, and plant height and density jointly regulate the quotient of leaf biomass and total biomass, and that they have a much weaker effect on shoot (leaf plus stem) biomass fractions at a global scale. Moreover, biotic factors have larger effects than abiotic factors. Climatic variables act equally on shoot and root growth, and differences in plant body size and age, as well as community species composition, which vary with climate in ways that drown out the variations in biomass fractions. The theory and data presented here provide mechanistic explanations of why climate has little effect on biomass fractions.  相似文献