Background: Scientific education aims to be inclusive and to improve students learning achievements, through appropriate teaching and learning. Problem Based Learning (PBL) system, a student centered method, started in the second half of the previous century and is expanding progressively, organizes learning around problems and students learn about a subject through the experience of solving these problems.Objectives:To assess the opinions of undergraduate medical students regarding learning outcomes of PBL in small group teaching and to explore their views about the role of tutors and methods of evaluation. Type of the study: A cross-sectional study.Methods: This study was conducted in Kerbala Medical Colleges among second year students. A self-administered questionnaire was prepared to evaluate the newly applied teaching system. The study analysis included simple descriptive analysis and determining association through t-test, chi square test and regression analysis and using structural equation models to determine simultaneous association between different students’ demographic characteristics and potential predictors using SPSS-20 and Amos software at a significance level of < 0.05.Results:A total of 131 undergraduate medical students participated in the study with a response rate of 94%. The majority (93%) have indicated that PBL strategy contributed effectively to their knowledge development with a similar majority (92%) considering PBL successful new teaching method. About 86% reported that would choose PBL rather than conventional method and also 86% would advise PBL for others. Similarly, high majority indicated that various PBL activities are essential. Regarding the tutors’ role in PBL, the majority (92%) indicated that this role was positive and fundamental. According to two thirds (68%) of participants PBL application in Kerbala Medical college was very good application while a higher majority described various PBL sessions as successful and positive and fundamental role of tutors was stressed by most students.Conclusions: This study highlighted the benefits of soliciting student impressions of effective small group teaching. The students’ emphasized group atmosphere and facilitation skills of tutor in learning.Key words: Problem Based Learning, Medical Education, Small Group Teaching, Team Based Learning, Kerbala Medical College
Skull image separation is one of the initial procedures used to detect brain abnormalities. In an MRI image of the brain, this process involves distinguishing the tissue that makes up the brain from the tissue that does not make up the brain. Even for experienced radiologists, separating the brain from the skull is a difficult task, and the accuracy of the results can vary quite a little from one individual to the next. Therefore, skull stripping in brain magnetic resonance volume has become increasingly popular due to the requirement for a dependable, accurate, and thorough method for processing brain datasets. Furthermore, skull stripping must be performed accurately for neuroimaging diagnostic systems since neither non-brain tissues nor
... Show MoreThe basic solution to overcome difficult issues related to huge size of digital images is to recruited image compression techniques to reduce images size for efficient storage and fast transmission. In this paper, a new scheme of pixel base technique is proposed for grayscale image compression that implicitly utilize hybrid techniques of spatial modelling base technique of minimum residual along with transformed technique of Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) that also impels mixed between lossless and lossy techniques to ensure highly performance in terms of compression ratio and quality. The proposed technique has been applied on a set of standard test images and the results obtained are significantly encourage compared with Joint P
... Show MorePredicting permeability is a cornerstone of petroleum reservoir engineering, playing a vital role in optimizing hydrocarbon recovery strategies. This paper explores the application of neural networks to predict permeability in oil reservoirs, underscoring their growing importance in addressing traditional prediction challenges. Conventional techniques often struggle with the complexities of subsurface conditions, making innovative approaches essential. Neural networks, with their ability to uncover complicated patterns within large datasets, emerge as a powerful alternative. The Quanti-Elan model was used in this study to combine several well logs for mineral volumes, porosity and water saturation estimation. This model goes be
... Show MoreThe investigation of signature validation is crucial to the field of personal authenticity. The biometrics-based system has been developed to support some information security features.Aperson’s signature, an essential biometric trait of a human being, can be used to verify their identification. In this study, a mechanism for automatically verifying signatures has been suggested. The offline properties of handwritten signatures are highlighted in this study which aims to verify the authenticity of handwritten signatures whether they are real or forged using computer-based machine learning techniques. The main goal of developing such systems is to verify people through the validity of their signatures. In this research, images of a group o
... Show MoreImage recognition is one of the most important applications of information processing, in this paper; a comparison between 3-level techniques based image recognition has been achieved, using discrete wavelet (DWT) and stationary wavelet transforms (SWT), stationary-stationary-stationary (sss), stationary-stationary-wavelet (ssw), stationary-wavelet-stationary (sws), stationary-wavelet-wavelet (sww), wavelet-stationary- stationary (wss), wavelet-stationary-wavelet (wsw), wavelet-wavelet-stationary (wws) and wavelet-wavelet-wavelet (www). A comparison between these techniques has been implemented. according to the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR), root mean square error (RMSE), compression ratio (CR) and the coding noise e (n) of each third
... Show MoreThe feature extraction step plays major role for proper object classification and recognition, this step depends mainly on correct object detection in the given scene, the object detection algorithms may result with some noises that affect the final object shape, a novel approach is introduced in this paper for filling the holes in that object for better object detection and for correct feature extraction, this method is based on the hole definition which is the black pixel surrounded by a connected boundary region, and hence trying to find a connected contour region that surrounds the background pixel using roadmap racing algorithm, the method shows a good results in 2D space objects.
Keywords: object filling, object detection, objec
The agent-based modeling is currently utilized extensively to analyze complex systems. It supported such growth, because it was able to convey distinct levels of interaction in a complex detailed environment. Meanwhile, agent-based models incline to be progressively complex. Thus, powerful modeling and simulation techniques are needed to address this rise in complexity. In recent years, a number of platforms for developing agent-based models have been developed. Actually, in most of the agents, often discrete representation of the environment, and one level of interaction are presented, where two or three are regarded hardly in various agent-based models. The key issue is that modellers work in these areas is not assisted by simulation plat
... Show More