Impact of web technologies on student-lecturer relationship

This poster aims to investigate the impact of using web resources as a source of knowledge on the student-lecturer relationship in Saudi Arabia. The investigation covers five aspects of the relationship; expert power and referent power which are part of power in classroom , academic self-confidence, reliance and connectedness which are part of academic engagement in classroom.. Connectedness includes investigating students’ view about using social web in education

Are Deep Learning Approaches Suitable for Natural Language Processing?

In recent years, Deep Learning (DL) techniques have gained much at-tention from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) research communities because these approaches can often learn features from data without the need for human design or engineering interventions. In addition, DL approaches have achieved some remarkable results. In this paper, we have surveyed major recent contributions that use DL techniques for NLP tasks. All these reviewed topics have been limited to show contributions to text understand-ing, such as sentence modelling, sentiment classification, semantic role labelling, question answering, etc. We provide an overview of deep learning architectures based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), and Recursive Neural Networks (RNNs)

Inventive Cubic symmetric encryption system for multimedia

Cryptography is a security technique that must be applied in both communication sides to protect the data during its transmission through the network from all kinds of attack. On the sender side, the original data will be changed into different symbols or shapes by using a known key; this is called encryption. On the other communication side, the decryption process will be done and the data will be returned to its former shape by using the agreed key. The importance of cryptography is to fulfil the communication security requirements. Real time applications (RTA) are vulnerable for the moment because of their big size. However, some of the current algorithms are not really appropriate for use with these kinds of information. In this paper, a novel symmetric block cipher cryptography algorithm has been illustrated and discussed. The system uses an 8x8x8 cube, and each cell contains a pair of binary inputs. The cube can provide a huge number of combinations that can produce a very strong algorithm and a long key size. Due to the lightweight and fast technique used in this idea, it is expected to be extremely rapid compared to the majority of current algorithms, such as DES and AES

Immediate feedback : a new mechanism for real-time feedback on classroom teaching practice

The proliferation of technology has re-defined the traditional learning environment. The classical classroom model of teacher to student delivery is changing as technology becomes more pervasive in educational environments. In addition, the availability of technology and the breadth of different device categories and platforms is a stark contrast to the traditional classroom, and the pervasiveness of low-cost devices provides opportunities to significantly re-define the learning environment. In this paper, we have developed a real-time feedback mechanism supported by technology to allow students and educators to assess comprehension in the teaching environment. Real-time feedback is input that is acquired whilst a teaching practice is ongoing, and the outcomes derived from the feedback mechanism have provided a strong pedagogical value to the learning environment. These benefits have been clearly elicited by the academic staff who trialled the system

Weather Data Analysis using Hadoop to Mitigate Event Planning Disasters

This poster presents the design and implementation of weather data analysis using Hadoop distributed system, which can be used for planning outdoor events. The proposed event planning system decides how many appropriate days for outdoor events and activities per month for a different attractive cities based on the analysis of historical weather data. All collected data are stored at HDFS, i.e., Hadoop Distributed File System, and then they are processed and analyzed by using MapReduce programming. As results, we can discover useful information about event planning, such as locations (city), time and statistical data

Hybrid Arabic text steganography

An improved method for Arabic text steganography is introduced in this paper. This method hides an Arabic text inside another based on a hybrid approach. Both Kashida and Arabic Diacritics are used to hide the Arabic text inside another text. In this improved method, the secret message is divided into two parts, the first part is to be hidden by the Kashida method, and the second is to be hidden by the Diacritics or Harakat method. For security purposes, we benefitted from the natural existence of Diacritics as a characteristic of Arabic written language, as used to represent vowel sounds. The paper exploits the possibility of hiding data in Fathah diacritic and Kashida punctuation marks, adjusting previously presented schemes that are based on a single method only. Here, the secret message is divided into two parts, the cover text is prepared, and then we apply the Harakat method on the first part. The Kashida method is applied on the second part, and then the two parts are combined. When the hidden ‘StegoText’ is received, a split mechanism is used to recover the original message. The described hybrid Arabic StegoText showed higher capacity and security with promising results compared to other methods

Finding the Optimum Orientation for PV Systems Matched to the Timing of the Demand Profile

IEEE conference publicationElectricity consumption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has grown by about 7% annually in the last two decades due to population and economic growth. The consumption of the residential sector accounts for over 50% of the total energy generation largely due to the consumption of the buildings’ air conditioning. This factor contributes significantly to a situation where peak electricity demand occurs in early afternoon. Thus, this paper presents one of the possible ways of managing electricity peak demand by proposing deployment of PV panels with slope and orientation that are optimized with respect to the timing of the demand profile in order to contribute most effectively to national electricity generation capacity. As a case study, numerical results are presented for Riyadh city in KSA

Effects of Cinnamon Water Extract as a Cariostatic Agent on Nicotine-Induced Streptococcus Mutans Biofilm

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)Objective: The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of cinnamon water extract on nicotine-induced Streptococcus mutans biofilm. This study utilized S. mutans biofilm assays with varying concentrations of nicotine/cinnamon water extract levels. Design: A preliminary experiment was carried out to confirm the most likely effective concentration of cinnamon water extract on S. mutans biofilm. Then a 24-hour culture of S. mutans UA159 in microtiter plates was treated with varying nicotine concentrations (0-32 mg/ml) in TSBS at the same time with or without the optimum cinnamon water extract concentration. A spectrophotometer was used to determine total growth absorbance and planktonic growth. The microtiter plate wells were washed, fixed and stained with crystal violet dye and the absorbance measured to determine biofilm formation. Results: The results indicated that cinnamon water extract was able to inhibit biofilm formation significantly (p<0.05) at 5 mg/ml cinnamon water extract, therefore, 5 mg/ml of cinnamon water extract was recognized as the MIC for S. mutans biofilm formation. When combined with nicotine, cinnamon water extract sub-MIC (2.5 mg/ml) demonstrated a significant inhibitory effect (p<0.05) in biofilm and total absorbance measures at high concentrations of nicotine (8 mg/ml and above). In addition, cinnamon water extract showed a significant effect (p<0.05) at very low concentrations of nicotine (0.25 and 0.5 mg/ml) in all measures (biofilm, planktonic and total absorbance). However, at low concentrations of nicotine (2 and 4 mg/ml), there was a significant increase (p<0.05) in biofilm growth, whereas planktonic growth was significantly (p<0.05) decreased at the same concentrations. Conclusion: These results provided more evidence regarding the negative effects of nicotine and also demonstrated the positive influence of cinnamon water extract in reducing nicotine-induced biofilm formation, which needs be confirmed by in-vivo studies