Improving students’ use of argumentation is front and center in the increasing emphasis on scientific practice in K-12 Science and STEM programs. We explore the construct validity of scenario-based assessments of claim-evidence-reasoning (CER) and the structure of the CER construct with respect to a learning progression framework. We also seek to understand how middle school students progress. Establishing the purpose of an argument is a competency that a majority of middle school students meet, whereas quantitative reasoning is the most difficult, and the Rasch model indicates that the competencies form a unidimensional hierarchy of skills. We also find no evidence of differential item functioning between different scenarios, suggesting

Iraq is one of the Arabian area countries, which considered from the drier areas
on the earth, though it has two main rivers that pass through(Tigris and Euphrates);
it suffers the same problem as them (drought), only the rivers' nearby regions make
use of their water for (domestic, agricultural, and industrial purposes(.
One of the usable solutions is to utilize the groundwater (especially in the desert
regions). Using the Remote Sensing and geographic information system is a rapid
and coast effective techniques, they provide information of large and inaccessible
area within short span for assessing, monitoring, and management of groundwater
resources. In this study, an adaptive algorithm based on Canny edge dete

Out of 150 different specimens, 67 S. aureus isolate were isolated. However, 16sRNA gene was located only in 60 isolates. Moreover, mecA gene was located in 48 isolates; thereby MRSA covered 80% of all S. aureus isolates. Of considerable interest, pvl gene was detected in only six isolates (10%). Hence, the present work emphasizes the notion suggested that pvl is not an indicative of CA-MRSA.

Recently, the environmental isotopes are adopted to figure out the hydrological processes, recharge areas, flow paths, groundwater origin and the interaction between different watery bodies. Currently, five samples of the rainwater have been collected since January to April 2012, as well as December 2011. Those sampling periods have highest amounts of precipitation events. Meantime, 25 samples of groundwater, 5 of the Lesser Zab River and 3 of overland flow have been picked up during the wet period. The dry sampling of groundwater and the Lesser Zab River has been achieved in summer 2011. The Local Meteoric Water Line lies between Global Meteoric Water Line (GMWL) and East Mediterranean Water Line (EMWL). The lowest, highest and

In this study water quality index (WQI) was calculated to classify the flowing water in the Tigris River in Baghdad city. GIS was used to develop colored water quality maps indicating the classification of the river for drinking water purposes. Water quality parameters including: Turbidity, pH, Alkalinity, Total hardness, Calcium, Magnesium, Iron, Chloride, Sulfate, Nitrite, Nitrate, Ammonia, Orthophosphate and Total dissolved solids were used for WQI determination. These parameters were recorded at the intakes of the WTPs in Baghdad for the period 2004 to 2011. The results from the annual average WQI analysis classified the Tigris River very poor to polluted at the north of Baghdad (Alkarkh WTP) while it was very poor to very polluted in t

   Alphatocopherol is a vitamin and antioxidant compound that plays a crucial role in amelioration of biotic and abiotic stresses and protects plants from stress – induced cellular  oxidation .The experiment was carried out in a green garden of the Department of  Biology, College of Education for Pure Sciences Ibn-AL-Haitham ,University of Baghdad during 2018 – 2019 to evaluate the potential effects of foliar application with (0 ,50 ,100 ,150 ,200 mg.L^-1) alphatocopherol on growth, yield components and the activity of antioxidant system of wheat plant under sodium chloride stress(0 ,75 , 150 ,225mM.L^-1) .Results indicated that sodium chloride caused reduction in shoot dry weight and

Urinary stones are one of the most common painful disorders of the urinary system. Four new technologies have transformed the treatment of urinary stones: Electrohydraulic lithotripsy, ultrasonic lithotripsy, extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy, and laser lithotripsy.The purpose of this study is to determine whether pulsed holmium laser energy is an effective method for fragmenting urinary tract stones in vitro, and to determine whether stone composition affects the efficacy of holmium laser lithotripsy. Human urinary stones of known composition with different sizes, shapes and colors were used for this study. The weight and the size of each stone were measured. The surgical laser system which used in our study is Ho:YAG laser(2100nm)

In this paper, we propose a new and efficient ferroelectric nanostructure metal oxide lithium niobate [(Li1.075Nb0.625Ti0.45O3), (LNTO)] solid film as a saturable absorber (SA) for modulating passive Q-switched erbium-doped fiber laser (EDFL). The SA is fabricated as a nanocomposite solid film by the drop-casting process in which the LNTO is planted within polyvinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene [P(VDF-TrFE)] as host copolymer. The optical and physical characteristics of the solid film are experimentally established. The SA is incorporated within the cavity of EDFL to examine its capability for producing multi-wavelength laser. The experimental results proved that a multi-wavelength laser is produced, where stable four lines with central

     Community detection is an important and interesting topic for better understanding and analyzing complex network structures. Detecting hidden partitions in complex networks is proven to be an NP-hard problem that may not be accurately resolved using traditional methods. So it is solved using evolutionary computation methods and modeled in the literature as an optimization problem.  In recent years, many researchers have directed their research efforts toward addressing the problem of community structure detection by developing different algorithms and making use of single-objective optimization methods. In this study, we have continued that research line by improving the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm using a