The impact of undergraduate research experiences on students' academic development and retention in STEM fields is significant. Students' success in STEM fields is based on developing strong research and critical thinking skills that make it essential for students to engage in research activities throughout their academic programs. This work evaluates the effectiveness of undergraduate research experiences with respect to its influence on student retention and academic development. The cases presented are based on years of experience implementing undergraduate research programs in various STEM fields at Colorado State University Pueblo (CSU Pueblo) funded by HSI STEM Grants. The study seeks to establish a correlation between students' reten

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related progressive and neurodegenerative disorder, which is characterized by loss of memory and cognitive decline. It is the main cause of disability among older people. The rapid increase in the number of people living with AD and other forms of dementia due to the aging population represents a major challenge to health and social care systems worldwide. Degeneration of brain cells due to AD starts many years before the clinical manifestations become clear. Early diagnosis of AD will contribute to the development of effective treatments that could slow, stop, or prevent significant cognitive decline. Consequently, early diagnosis of AD may also be valuable in detecting patients with dementia who have n

Voting is an important procedure in democratic societies in different countries, including Iraq. Electronic voting (E-voting) is becoming more prevalent due to reducing administrative costs and burdens. E-voting systems have many restrictions that affect the electoral process. For example, fraud, tampering with ballot boxes, taking many hours to announce results, and the difficulty of reaching polling stations. Over the last decade, blockchain and smart contract technologies have gained widespread adoption in various sectors, such as cryptocurrencies, finance, banking, and most notably in e-voting systems. If utilized properly, the developer demonstrates properties that are promising for their properties, such as security, privacy, trans

In the present study, synthesis of bis Schiff base [I, II] by reaction of one mole of terephthalaldehyde with two mole of 2-amino-5-mercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole or 4-amino benzene thiol in the ethanol absolute, then compounds [I,II]  were reacted with Na₂CO₃ of distilled H₂O, then chloroacetic acid was added to yield compounds [III,IV]. O-chitosan derivatives [V,VI] were synthesized by reaction of chitosan with compounds [III,IV] in acidic media in distilled water according to the steps of Fischer. O–chitosan (grafted chitosan) [V,VI] was blended with synthetic polymer polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) to produce polymers [VII,VIII], then these polymers were blended with nano: Gold or Silver by u

In regression testing, Test case prioritization (TCP) is a technique to arrange all the available test cases. TCP techniques can improve fault detection performance which is measured by the average percentage of fault detection (APFD). History-based TCP is one of the TCP techniques that consider the history of past data to prioritize test cases. The issue of equal priority allocation to test cases is a common problem for most TCP techniques. However, this problem has not been explored in history-based TCP techniques. To solve this problem in regression testing, most of the researchers resort to random sorting of test cases. This study aims to investigate equal priority in history-based TCP techniques. The first objective is to implement

The security of message information has drawn more attention nowadays, so; cryptography has been used extensively. This research aims to generate secured cipher keys from retina information to increase the level of security. The proposed technique utilizes cryptography based on retina information. The main contribution is the original procedure used to generate three types of keys in one system from the retina vessel's end position and improve the technique of three systems, each with one key. The distances between the center of the diagonals of the retina image and the retina vessel's end (diagonal center-end (DCE)) represent the first key. The distances between the center of the radius of the retina and the retina vessel's end (ra

Natural gas and oil are one of the mainstays of the global economy. However, many issues surround the pipelines that transport these resources, including aging infrastructure, environmental impacts, and vulnerability to sabotage operations. Such issues can result in leakages in these pipelines, requiring significant effort to detect and pinpoint their locations. The objective of this project is to develop and implement a method for detecting oil spills caused by leaking oil pipelines using aerial images captured by a drone equipped with a Raspberry Pi 4. Using the message queuing telemetry transport Internet of Things (MQTT IoT) protocol, the acquired images and the global positioning system (GPS) coordinates of the images' acquisition are

Objective(s): In the present study, glycerin is used as a substitute for tin-foil and cold mold seal (Alginate mould seal)
in the process of curing heat and cold-cure acrylic resin denture base against stone and plaster.
Methodology: 60 specimens were prepared from heat-cure acrylic resin and cold-cure acrylic resin denture base. The
study includes 12 groups of specimens depending on the type of processing, investment material and type of
separating medium that are used in curing process. Each group of them contains 5 specimens for each test.
Some of physical properties of the processed acrylic denture base that (water sorption and solubility) have been
compared with those processed using tin-foil and tin-foil substitut

Making the data secure is more and more concerned in the communication era. This research is an attempt to make a more secured information message by using both encryption and steganography. The encryption phase is done with dynamic DNA complementary rules while DNA addition rules are done with secret key where both are based on the canny edge detection point of the cover image. The hiding phase is done after dividing the cover image into 8 blocks, the blocks that are used for hiding selected in reverse order exception the edge points. The experiments result shows that the method is reliable with high value in PSNR