Automatic Programming Assessment (APA) has been gaining lots of attention among researchers mainly to support automated grading and marking of students’ programming assignments or exercises systematically. APA is commonly identified as a method that can enhance accuracy, efficiency and consistency as well as providing instant feedback on students’ programming solutions. In achieving APA, test data generation process is very important so as to perform a dynamic testing on students’ assignment. In software testing field, many researches that focus on test data generation have demonstrated the successful of adoption of Meta-Heuristic Search Techniques (MHST) so as to enhance the procedure of deriving adequate test data for efficient testing. Nonetheless, thus far the researches on APA have not yet usefully exploited the techniques accordingly to include a better quality program testing coverage. Therefore, this study has conducted a comparative evaluation to identify any applicable MHST to support efficient Automated Test Data Generation (ATDG) in executing a dynamic-functional testing in APA. Several recent MHST are included in the comparative evaluation combining both the local and global search algorithms ranging from the year of 2000 until 2018. Result of this study suggests that the hybridization of Cuckoo Search with Tabu Search and lévy flight as one of promising MHST to be applied, as it’s outperforms other MHST with regards to number of iterations and range of inputs.
Although many technological improvements are occurring in power production worldwide, power plants in third world countries are still using old technologies that are causing thermal pollution to the water bodies. Power facilities that dump hot water into water bodies are damaging aquatic life. In the study, the impact of the Al Dora thermal power plant on a nearby stretch of Tigris River in Baghdad city was assessed by measuring the temperature of the disposed of hot water in various cross-sections of the selected stretch of Tigris River, including measuring the thermal mixing length. The measurements were conducted in winter, spring, and summer. For field measurements, it was found that the impact of recovery distances
... Show MoreBackground: Peripheral giant cell lesion (PGCL) and central giant cell lesion (CGCL) of the jaws have a distinct clinical behavior.Giant cell tumour (GCT) is a benign locally aggressive neoplasm affects the long bones. Both lesions are characterized histologically by multinucleated giant cells in a background of ovoid to spindle-shaped mesenchymal cells. The WW domain-containing oxidoreductase (WWOX) gene is located at 16q23.1–16q23.2, a region that spans the second most common human fragile site, FRA16D, at 16q23.2.The Ki-67 antigen is a nuclear protein that is associated with and may be necessary for cellular proliferation.Ki-67 protein is present during all active phases of the cell cycle (G1, S, G2, and mitosis), but is absent fr
... Show MoreThe research is summarized in the construction of a mathematical model using the most common methods in the science of Operations Research, which are the models of transportation and linear programming to find the best solution to the problem of the high cost of hajj in Iraq, and this is done by reaching the optimum number of pilgrims traveling through both land ports and the number Ideal for passengers traveling through airports by Iraqi Airways, instead of relying on the personal experience of the decision-maker in Hajj and Umrah Authority by identifying the best port for pilgrim's travel, which can tolerate right or wrong, has been based on scientific methods of Operations Research, the researcher built two mathematical models
... Show MoreSince the Internet has been more widely used and more people have access to multimedia content, copyright hacking, and piracy have risen. By the use of watermarking techniques, security, asset protection, and authentication have all been made possible. In this paper, a comparison between fragile and robust watermarking techniques has been presented to benefit them in recent studies to increase the level of security of critical media. A new technique has been suggested when adding an embedded value (129) to each pixel of the cover image and representing it as a key to thwart the attacker, increase security, rise imperceptibility, and make the system faster in detecting the tamper from unauthorized users. Using the two watermarking ty
... Show MoreThe extraction of pesticides is a critical and urgent issue in the preparation for and determination of pesticide residues. The lack of a quick, easy, and successful extraction process is the most critical and challenging problem, even if diagnostic tools have improved and pesticide residues have been better understood. This study contrasted the QuEChERS method, which uses gas chromatography with a flame ionization detector, with the LLE method, which uses liquid-liquid extraction, in order to extract pyridaben from cucumbers and spiromesifen from tomatoes. The GC-FID device was employed to ascertain the spiromesifen LOD and LOQ, which were 0.002 μg mL-1 and 0.00
Background Psoriasis is one of the most prevalent chronic inflammatory skin conditions; its prevalence ranges from 1 to 3%. Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α), a cytokine that enhances inflammation, is overexpressed in synovium and skin plaques in psoriasis. TNF-α plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis. IL-10 is the most crucial cytokine for reducing excessive immune responses and decreasing pro-inflammatory reactions in all autoimmune disorders. Objective To evaluate the effect of Apremilast on ILـ10, TNFـα, and BMI in obese psoriatic patients. Methods Thirty patients included in this investigative study to measure the concentrations of TNFـα, ILـ10 and BMI, before and after receiving Apremilast. TNFـα and
... Show MoreIn this study, a genetic algorithm (GA) is used to detect damage in curved beam model, stiffness as well as mass matrices of the curved beam elements is formulated using Hamilton's principle. Each node of the curved beam element possesses seven degrees of freedom including the warping degree of freedom. The curved beam element had been derived based on the Kang and Yoo’s thin-walled curved beam theory. The identification of damage is formulated as an optimization problem, binary and continuous genetic algorithms
(BGA, CGA) are used to detect and locate the damage using two objective functions (change in natural frequencies, Modal Assurance Criterion MAC). The results show the objective function based on change in natural frequency i
A numerical study of the double-diffusive laminar natural convection in a right triangular solar collector has been investigated in present work. The base (absorber) and glass cover of the collector are isothermal and isoconcentration surfaces, while the vertical wall is considered adiabatic and impermeable. Both aiding and opposing buoyancy forces have been studied. Governing equations in vorticity-stream function form are discretized via finite-difference method and are solved numerically by iterative successive under relaxation (SUR) technique. Computer code for MATLAB software has been developed and written to solve mathematical model. Results in the form of streamlines, isotherms, isoconcentration, average Nusselt, and average Sherw
... Show MoreThere are many diseases that affect the arteries, especially those related to their elasticity and stiffness, and they can be guessed by estimating and calculating the modulus of elasticity. Hence, the accurate calculation of the elastic modulus leads to an accurate assessment of these diseases, especially in their early stages, which can contribute to the treatment of these diseases early. Most of the calculations used the one-dimensional (1D) modulus of elasticity. From a mechanical point of view, the stresses to which the artery is subjected are not one-dimensional, but three-dimensional. Therefore, estimating at least a two-dimensional (2D) modulus of elasticity will necessarily be more accurate. To the knowledge of researchers, there i
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