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 that multiple scenarios can be utilized in the context of a multi-level assessment framework for measuring the impacts of learning experiences on students’ argumentation.
Background and Aim: due to the rapid growth of data communication and multimedia system applications, security becomes a critical issue in the communication and storage of images. This study aims to improve encryption and decryption for various types of images by decreasing time consumption and strengthening security. Methodology: An algorithm is proposed for encrypting images based on the Carlisle Adams and Stafford Tavares CAST block cipher algorithm with 3D and 2D logistic maps. A chaotic function that increases the randomness in the encrypted data and images, thereby breaking the relation sequence through the encryption procedure, is introduced. The time is decreased by using three secure and private S-Boxes rather than using si
... Show MorePeak ground acceleration (PGA) is one of the critical factors that affect the determination of earthquake intensity. PGA is generally utilized to describe ground motion in a particular zone and is able to efficiently predict the parameters of site ground motion for the design of engineering structures. Therefore, novel models are developed to forecast PGA in the case of the Iraqi database, which utilizes the particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach. A data set of 187 historical ground-motion recordings in Iraq’s tectonic regions was used to build the explicit proposed models. The proposed PGA models relate to different seismic parameters, including the magnitude of the earthquake (Mw), average shear-wave velocity (VS30), focal depth (FD
... Show MoreDisease diagnosis with computer-aided methods has been extensively studied and applied in diagnosing and monitoring of several chronic diseases. Early detection and risk assessment of breast diseases based on clinical data is helpful for doctors to make early diagnosis and monitor the disease progression. The purpose of this study is to exploit the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) in discriminating breast MRI scans into pathological and healthy. In this study, a fully automated and efficient deep features extraction algorithm that exploits the spatial information obtained from both T2W-TSE and STIR MRI sequences to discriminate between pathological and healthy breast MRI scans. The breast MRI scans are preprocessed prior to the feature
... Show MoreThis research has come out with that strategies made by Porter as generally strategies applicable to any size and type of economic units cannot be applied to many of the economic units in the world in generally and in Iraq especially not a lot of economic units have the resources and competencies that enable them to provide a unique product of its kind in the minds of customers and then adopt a differentiation strategy and not a lot of economic units have the resources and competencies that make them the cost leader. Differentiators and cost leaders are minority in the world while not differentiators and not cost leaders are majority in the world.
The economic units are not differentiators and not c
... Show MoreA microbial study conducted for a number of flour samples (30 samples) Uses in the bakery ovens in various areas of the city of Baghdad, by used the conventional methods used in laboratories in microbial tests and compared with the modern techniqueby usedof BacTrac Device 3400 equipped from SY-LAB Impedance analysersAustrian company.The results of two ways showed (The conventional way and BacTrac Device test)that the total counts of aerobic bacteria, coliform bacteria, StaphylococcusSpp. bacteria, Bacillus cereus bacteria and yeasts and molds,Most of them were within the permissible borders in the Iraqi standard for grain and its products With free samples from SalmonellaSpp. bacteria, and that the screening by BacTrac device are shorten
... Show More