International Journal of Modern Education and Computer Science (IJMECS)

IJMECS Vol. 5, No. 7, Jul. 2013

Cover page and Table of Contents: PDF (size: 737KB)

Table Of Contents

REGULAR PAPERS

Students' Understanding of Selected Aspects of Interface Class in Java

By Ilana Lavy Rashkovits Rami

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.01, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

This study examines the understanding of various aspects relating to the concept of interface class by Management Information Systems students. The examined aspects were: definition, implementation, class hierarchy and polymorphism. The main contributions of this paper are as follows: we developed a questionnaire addressing the above aspects; we classified and analysed the students' responses to determine the students' understanding of the above aspects and to highlight common faulty solutions. The results obtained reveal that majority of the students demonstrated understanding of definition and implementation of interface class, however, only two- thirds of the students demonstrated understanding of interface class in the context of class hierarchy and only one third of them demonstrated understanding of polymorphism in the context of interface class. The students’ utterances from the interviews shed light on their difficulties.

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Towards Qualitative Computer Science Education: Engendering Effective Teaching Methods

By Basirat A. Adenowo Stephen O. Adenle Adetokunbo A.A. Adenowo

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.02, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

An investigation into the teaching method(s) that can effectively yield qualitative computer science education in Basic Schools becomes necessary due to the Nigerian government policy on education. The government’s policy stipulates that every graduate of Basic Schools or UBE (Universal Basic education) should be computer literate. This policy intends to ensure her citizens are ICT (Information and Communication Technology) compliant. The foregoing thus necessitatesthe production of highly qualified manpower―grounded in computer knowledge―to implement the computer science education strand of the UBE curriculum. Accordingly, this research investigates the opinion of computer teacher-trainees on the teaching methods used while on training. Some of the teacher-trainees―that taught computer study while on teaching practice―were systematically sampled using “Purposive” sampling technique. The results show consensus in male and female teacher-trainees’ views; both gender agreed that all the teaching methods used, while on training, will engender effective teaching of computer study. On the whole, the mean performance ratings of male teacher-trainees were found to be higher than that of females. However, this is not in accord with the target set by Universal Basic Education Commission which intends to eliminate gender disparity in the UBE programme. The results thussuggestthe need for further investigation using larger sample.

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An Interactive Teaching – Learning Tool for Underprivileged Children in Rural Schools

By H.Vignesh Ramamoorthy P.J.Balakumaran H.Karthikeyani

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.03, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

In a country like India, there are children who starve for food, water and cannot spend time for studying and they have to work hard, to get one meal a day. The dropouts in schools are high because of various reasons. Education is not at affordable cost, government must bring some schemes. 80% schools suffer from shortage of teachers, infrastructural gaps and several habitations. There are also frequent allegations of government schools being riddled with absenteeism and mismanagement and appointments are based on political convenience. Despite the allure of free lunch-food in the government schools, many parents send their children to private schools. As a result, proponents of low cost private schools, critiqued government schools as being poor value for money. Furthermore, many international schools with most modern Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools are mushrooming even in remote villages because the rural elites who are able to afford school fees in a country where large number of families live in absolute poverty. The major objective of this paper is to develop an interactive teaching-learning tool with multimedia applications for underprivileged children in rural schools. This tool will help the rural school children to have quality education at an affordable cost.

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Evaluation: The New Philosophical Roles & Psychological Means

By Prashant M. Dolia

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.04, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

Evaluation Roles and Means are very broad. It concerns with n number of attributes. This paper discussed the relationship between evaluation & research, philosophy of evaluation, physiology of evaluation, Evaluation in applied psychology. In the above context, how the basic logic of evaluation is set with evaluation fields and the phases of evaluation process.

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Spatial and Transform Domain Filtering Method for Image De-noising: A Review

By Vandana Roy Shailja Shukla

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.05, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

Present investigation reveals the quantum of work carried in the filtering methods for image de-noising. An image is often gets corrupted by various noises that are visible or invisible while being gathered, coded, acquired and transmitted. Noise influences various process parameters that may cause a quality problem for further image processing. De-noising of natural images is appears to be very simple however when considered under practical situations becomes complex. It has been cited by various author that parameter such as type and quantum of noise, image etc. through single algorithm or approach becomes cumbersome when results are optimized. In order to improve the quality of an image noise must be removed when the image is pre-processed and the important signal features like edge details should be retained as much as possible. The search on efficient image de-noising methods is still a valid challenge at the crossing of functional analysis and statistics. This paper reviews significant de-noising methods (spatial and transform domain method) and their salient features and applications. One filter in each category has been taken in consideration to understand the characteristics of both spatial and transform domain filters.

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An Ingenious Wireless Home Security System and Protocol based upon Multi-hop 802.15.4 standard, Magnetic contact and PIR sensor

By Ulya Sabeel Nidhi Chandra Shivraj Dagadi

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.06, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

Security is the major part of home automation systems for the people. With the development of network and automatic control technology, a home security monitoring and alarming system becomes more and more practicable today. In this paper we have proposed simple, low cost, low power consumption and a novel method for implementing the home security using Zigbee (802.15.4) standard and also a security protocol for detecting and localizing identity based attacks in the system. We have named our scheme as Wireless Home Security System (WHSS) and protocol as Wireless Home Security Protocol (WHSP). It consists of many sensor nodes deployed in the rooms as well as the doors/ windows of the house together with the zigbee modules which act as end devices that monitor continuously and send the security status of each room to the coordinator node connected to a PC which acts as the master. The communication in this case is multi-hop which provides unlimited range. Here we have used the XBEE Pro series1 (XBP24-AWI-001) radios for RF communication, DYP-ME003 PIR sensor, and Contact Door / window sensor based on magnetic reed switch (ORD221).The hardware implementation has been tested for validation successfully. The software has been implemented using C#. Also the performance of our proposed security protocol has been analysed using NS2 and is found to be satisfactory.

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Improving Teaching Methodology in System Analysis and Design using Problem Based Learning for ABET

By Sara Fatima Salha Abdullah

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.07, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

System Analysis and Design is an active field that demonstrates continuously new techniques and approaches to develop systems more effectively and efficiently. Teaching System Analysis and Design courses are thus quite challenging for many reasons, such as rapid changes in the environment, changes in the nature of technology, demands and needs of the industry and new market trends. These factors will have a direct effect on the students learning and their effectiveness in the place of work. This paper examines this trend and considers Problem Based Learning as the best methodology to respond to them. It will improve the students understanding of the concepts, ideas and thus enhance their learning experience. This paper also examines the level of achievements in the course learning outcomes as outlined by Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.

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Economic Designing of PV/FC/Wind Hybrid System Considering Components Availability

By Saber Arabi Nowdeh Mahdi Hajibeigy

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5815/ijmecs.2013.07.08, Pub. Date: 8 Jul. 2013

This paper presents an Optimization Sizing of a stand-alone PV/FC/Wind Hybrid System (PFWHS) to optimize the sizes of components of PFWHS. Based on PSO algorithm, one optimal sizing method was developed to determine the optimal configuration of system that can achieve the load required power supply probability (Reliability) with a minimum overall cost of energy (OCE).PFWHS costs involve investments, operation and maintenance as well as loss of load costs. The applied wind and radiation datasets belong to northwest region (Jolfa, latitude: 38_56, longitude: 45_37, altitude: 710, m) of Iran. In this paper the impact of availability of PFWHS components is investigated on optimal sizing. So, to investigating the impact of component availability rate on PFWHS costs and reliability due to failure and repair rate of PFWHS components and uncertainty in wind speed and solar irradiance, two scenarios are considered. In first scenario the availability of all components is considered 1 and in second scenario isn’t considered 1 because of failure and repair rate of components and uncertainty in wind speed and solar irradiance. Obtained results prove that while the overall cost of energy is optimized, the reliability indices are within a satisfactory bound with regard to the reliability standards. Also the results indicate that considering complete availability of components causes more reliability rate, so to achieve the actual behavior of PFWHS, the rate of components availability must be considered in suitable insight to designer for supply the load.

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