Quality assurance strategies for affiliated institutions of HE: a case study of the affiliates under National University of Bangladesh

Presently, education is considered as the main weapon for national development. However, this tenet has been challenged by several economists. Their findings give rise to a further question: whilst expansion of education increases globally, what is it exactly that continues to hinder a country’s progression? There is no short answer, but one major area of concern is the quality and relevance of the education available. Research for this paper, the first of its kind in Bangladesh, has been carried out by interviews and observation in the affiliates of the National University of Bangladesh, where 80 % of the students in higher education are the underprivileged. The findings show that the legislators ignore the fact that quality of education in the affiliates is perceived as important.     

Performance improvement of a crumb rubber modified bitumen using recycled glass powder

In this study, the efficiency of bitumen and asphalt mixtures modified with crumb rubber （CR） and recycled glass powder （RGP） is evaluated. From an environmental point of view, the application of RGP in asphalt mixtures is considered beneficial since it prevents accumulation of waste glass in the natural environment. Rheological and mechanical properties of modified bitumen samples were investigated by laboratory methods such as bitumen conventional tests and dynamic shear rheometer （DSR）, and also by asphalt mixture performance tests including Marshall stability, indirect tensile strength （ITS）, compressive strength, and indirect tensile stiffness modulus. The results showed that the application of RGP in place of CR has no negative impact on the efficiency of bitumen and asphalt mixtures and even improves their engineering properties except for the toughness index （TI）. Moreover, a modification with 5% CR and 5% RGP in asphalt mixtures results in the best overall performance.     

Ultrastructure and phylogeny of Ustilago coicis

Ustilago coicis causes serious smut on Coix lacryma-jobi in Dayang Town, Jinyun County, Zhejiang Province of China. In this paper, ultrastructural assessments on fungus-host interactions and teliospore development are presented, and molecular phylogenetic analyses have been done to elucidate the phylogenetic placement of the taxon. Hyphal growth within infected tissues was both intracellular and intercellular and on the surface of fungus-host interaction, and the fungal cell wall and the invaginated host plasma membrane were separated by a sheath comprising two distinct layers between the fungal cell wall and the invaginated host plasma membrane. Ornamentation development of teliospore walls was unique as they appeared to be originated from the exosporium. In addition, internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and large subunit (LSU) sequence data showed that U. coicis is closely related to Ustilago trichophora which infects grass species of the genus Echinochloa (Poaceae).     

The mutual impact of personality traits on seating preference and educational achievement

Several studies have investigated the association between students' seating positions and their classroom performance. However, the role of personality traits on seating preference in the classroom has not been well investigated. The aim of the study was to understand how students choose their seats according to their personality traits in a classroom context and the influence of personality characteristics and seat selection on educational achievement. The seating positions of the medical students were recorded on an architectural plan during each class session, and the means and standard deviations of the students' locations were calculated in X and Y orientations. The locations of the students in the class were analyzed based on three architectural classifications: interactional zone, distance from the board, and access to the aisles. The NEO Five-Factor Inventory was used to evaluate the five main personality characteristics of the students. Midterm and final exam scores were used to measure the students' educational achievement. Analysis of variance showed a statistical significance correlation between the interactional zones and both agreeableness and conscientiousness. Mantel–Haenszel analysis showed a statistical significance association between sex and agreeableness and openness to experiences, which was mainly caused by zone II. Among the tested characteristics, a statistically significant relationship was observed between agreeableness and final exam scores. There was a statistical significance difference in openness and extraversion between the students with a high number of absences and their classmates. A relationship between the student's locations in the class, their educational achievements, and some of their personality characteristics are addressed.     

Engineering a General Education Program: Designing Mechanical Engineering General Education Courses

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at our institution created two engineering courses for the General Education Program that count towards second level general science credit (traditional science courses are first level). The courses were designed for the general student population based upon the requirements of our General Education Program and engineering concepts. We explain the results and impact of the classes so as to expand the conceptualization of general education courses and to enable engineering curricula to reach a larger audience as well as to broaden student understanding of the forces shaping their world.     

A security-embedded infrastructure for Tele-Traffic Speed Control

In this paper we introduce a novel approach, relying on intelligent engineering, whereby the maximum speed limit at which vehicles on the road can cruise is controlled from some central or distributed facility. The system, as designed, leverages the use of the ubiquitous cellular infrastructure to cut down the costs involved that would otherwise accrue as a result of the need to build a dedicated traffic control system.In the new system maximum speed limits are transmitted from a Central Control Facility (CCF) to all stretches of roads and highways dispersed across urban areas in a highly dynamic manner. The system uses information arriving via a dynamic feedback system on prevailing weather conditions, road conditions, and bulk of traffic, amongst others, before it would broadcast maximum speed limit information to various destinations. When deployed in its final release, this will be done using a highly automated system with little human intervention.The work presented in this paper elaborates the TTC Network Design and RSU Network Distribution for the Tele-Traffic Speed Control System, to remotely manage, enforce, and control the maximum speed limit allowed on road stretches in rural and urban areas for different vehicle categories.The new system has been deployed successfully in a laboratory controlled environment on three vehicle categories; one category representing passenger vehicles, another buses and commuter transport, while the third representing trucks and freight traffic. It is expected that when the system is fully deployed on the wireless infrastructure, speed-related traffic accidents will witness a drop by more than 65-70% according to known accident statistics.     

Taxonomy of e-readiness assessment measures

To benefit from the advantages of information society, on the one hand, and to be afraid of being left further behind by Global Society and the increase in the digital divide, on the other hand, stimulate countries to be part of Global Information Society. These issues have led policymakers to move towards such a society by identifying the objectives, goals and targets. Planning to achieve these objectives needs a real understanding of the current situation, which is obtained by e-readiness assessment measures. There has been a proliferation of e-readiness assessment measures in recent years that each one has a certain objective. This paper elaborates on and categorizes these measures that help scholars and policymakers to (1) select the measures that fit in with their objectives, (2) prevent the repetitive research, (3) identify the defects and flaws of previous measures and correct them in their own measures, and (4) use the experiences of previous measures to construct their own ones. Based on definitions, objectives, dimensions, methods and approaches, in this paper, the measures are categorized and finally, a measure for e-readiness assessment is presented. Since this measure is a convergence of e-readiness assessment measures, the experienced modelers have consensus on it and it is more suitable to measure e-readiness of countries. Also, it can be exploited as the basis and standard for internationally comparable information society statistics.     

DistanceRank: An intelligent ranking algorithm for web pages

A fast and efficient page ranking mechanism for web crawling and retrieval remains as a challenging issue. Recently, several link based ranking algorithms like PageRank, HITS and OPIC have been proposed. In this paper, we propose a novel recursive method based on reinforcement learning which considers distance between pages as punishment, called “DistanceRank” to compute ranks of web pages. The distance is defined as the number of “average clicks” between two pages. The objective is to minimize punishment or distance so that a page with less distance to have a higher rank. Experimental results indicate that DistanceRank outperforms other ranking algorithms in page ranking and crawling scheduling. Furthermore, the complexity of DistanceRank is low. We have used University of California at Berkeley’s web for our experiments.     

Relationship between free iron and glycated hemoglobin in uncontrolled type 2 diabetes patients associated with complications

Free iron in serum has been found in several disease conditions including diabetes. In the present work, we studied the relationship between free iron, fasting blood glucose (FBG) and glycated haemoglobin (HbA_1c). Study was carried out on 50 type 2 diabetes cases under poor glycemic control associated with complications, 53 type 2 diabetes cases under good glycemic control and 40 healthy controls. We estimated free iron, both ferrous (Fe⁺²) and ferric (Fe⁺³) form, protein thiols, lipid hydroperoxides, FBG, HbA1c and serum ferritin levels in serum. There was a significant increase in free iron in Fe⁺³ state (p <0.01), HbA_1c (p<0.01), serum ferritin (p<0.01), lipid hydroperoxides (p<0.01) and significant decrease in protein thiols (<0.01) in diabetes cases under poor glycemic control compared to diabetes cases under good glycemic control and healthy controls. Free iron correlated positively with HbA_1c (p<0.01). Poor glycemic control and increase in glycation of haemoglobin is contributing to the increase in free iron pool which is known to increase oxidant generation.