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
The flexible joint robot (FJR) typically experiences parametric variations, nonlinearities, underactuation, noise propagation, and external disturbances which seriously degrade the FJR tracking. This article proposes an adaptive integral sliding mode controller (AISMC) based on a singular perturbation method and two state observers for the FJR to achieve high performance. First, the underactuated FJR is modeled into two simple second-order fast and slow subsystems by using Olfati transformation and singular perturbation method, which handles underactuation while reducing noise amplification. Then, the AISMC is proposed to effectively accomplish the desired tracking performance, in which the integral sliding surface is designed to reduce cha
... Show MoreCipher security is becoming an important step when transmitting important information through networks. The algorithms of cryptography play major roles in providing security and avoiding hacker attacks. In this work two hybrid cryptosystems have been proposed, that combine a modification of the symmetric cryptosystem Playfair cipher called the modified Playfair cipher and two modifications of the asymmetric cryptosystem RSA called the square of RSA technique and the square RSA with Chinese remainder theorem technique. The proposed hybrid cryptosystems have two layers of encryption and decryption. In the first layer the plaintext is encrypted using modified Playfair to get the cipher text, this cipher text will be encrypted using squared
... Show MoreSensitive information of any multimedia must be encrypted before transmission. The dual chaotic algorithm is a good option to encrypt sensitive information by using different parameters and different initial conditions for two chaotic maps. A dual chaotic framework creates a complex chaotic trajectory to prevent the illegal use of information from eavesdroppers. Limited precisions of a single chaotic map cause a degradation in the dynamical behavior of the communication system. To overcome this degradation issue in, a novel form of dual chaos map algorithm is analyzed. To maintain the stability of the dynamical system, the Lyapunov Exponent (LE) is determined for the single and dual maps. In this paper, the LE of the single and dual maps
... Show MoreThe automatic liquid filling system is used in different applications such as production of detergents, liquid soaps, fruit juices, milk products, bottled water, etc. The automatic bottle filling system is highly expensive. Where, the common filling systems required to complex changes in hardware and software in order to modify volume of liquid. There are many important variables in the filling process such as volume of liquid, the filling time, etc. This paper presents a new approach to develop an automatic liquid filling system. The new proposed system consists of a conveyor subsystem, filling stations, and camera to detect the level of the liquid at any instant during the filling process. The camera can detect accurately the leve
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