Background: Collaborative learning is an important pedagogical strategy which gained a huge interest in critical domains such as the medical field. However, to ensure the quality of this learning method, it is necessary to focus intention not only on the cognitive aspect but also on the social activities that represent an essential issue during collaborative learning sessions. Our objective in this study is to highlight the collaborative aspect in the group learning method of clinical reasoning. Methods: In this work, we have focused on cognitive studies that are interested in the clinical reasoning processes, while proposing a model dedicated to the design of collaborative clinical reasoning learning environment in synchronous mode. This model is primarily interested in social activities that have a strong influence on the collaborative learning effectiveness, and they are generally treated implicitly by basing on the improvisation and spontaneity of the learners group. Results: The research idea was embodied through a collaborative learning clinical reasoning environment based on Web 2.0 technologies. We chose this technology to benefit from its ease of use and from its technical performances that can significantly contribute to the development of the cognitive and social aspects in the collaborative learning environment. Conclusion: Our first contact with medical students showed us that they are appreciating this learning method. Indeed, to evaluate objectively our choices reliability, we plan to accomplish this research with a quantitative study based on real experiences with clinicians and medical students. The suggested study will allow us to collect the necessary lessons to work in depth on the relevant questions concerning the cognitive and social activities in the collaborative clinical reasoning learning.  

: In the present work, thin films of Cr/NiO/Ni are deposited on glass substrates using RF magnetron sputtering technique. The uniformity and homogeneity of the prepared films were controlled by varying the power of the source, the targetsubstrate distance and the pressure of the plasma gas which is argon. In order to test the Preisach Model, we carried out measurements according to two directions: parallel and perpendicular to the substrate plane using a Vibrating Sample Magnetometer at room temperature. Good agreement has been obtained by comparing the experimental hysteresis loops to the ones determined using Preisach model. We conclude that this model is powerful in predicting the magnetic properties of multilayer systems.

A numerical homogenization technique and morphological analysis based on the finite element method are used to compute mechanical properties of porous materials. This is achieved by considering two–dimensional matrix containing random distribution of identical non–overlapping circular or elliptical voids. Several microstructure configurations are obtained by varying the voids morphology and the porosity of the matrix. The notion of the representative volume element is used for numerical simulations in order to estimate the morphology effects of the voids on the effective ultimate tensile strength of the called Lotus–Type Porous Metals. A confrontation of the obtained numerical results of the representative microstructures for different morphologies of voids and different porosities to an analytical model and experimental data is performed. Finally, a formula improving the Boccaccini model is proposed to estimate effective tensile strength of porous metals taking into account the voids morphology.

The purpose of this paper is to ensure power efficiency in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) through a new framework-oriented middleware, based on a biologically inspired mechanism that uses an evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithm. The authors call this middleware framework multi-objective optimization for wireless sensor networks (MONet).

Motion detection is a live issue. Moving objects are an important clue for smart video surveillance systems. In this work we try to detect the motion in video surveillance systems. The aim of our work is to propose solutions for the automatic detection of moving objects in real time with a surveillance camera. We are interested by objects that have some geometric shape (circle, ellipse, square, and rectangle). Proposed approaches are based on background subtraction and edge detection. Proposed algorithms mainly consist of three steps: edge detection, extracting objects with some geometric shapes and motion detection of extracted objects.

Reduction of the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) in multilevel inverters requires resolution of complex nonlinear transcendental equations; in this paper we propose a combination of one of the best existing optimized hardware structures with the recent firefly algorithm, which was used to optimize the THD, through finding the best switching angles and guaranteeing the minimization of harmonics within a user defined bandwidth. The obtained THD through the simulation of the thirteen-level symmetric inverter has been reduced down to 5% (FFT of 60 harmonics). In order to validate the simulation results, a thirteen-level symmetric inverter prototype has been made, and practically experimented and tested with different loads. Consequently, the measured THD with resistive load was 4.7% on a bandwidth of 3 kHz. The main advantage of the achieved work is the reduction of the THD.

In this paper, Multi-depot Fleet Size Mix Vehicle Routing Problem with time window (MD-FSMVRP-TW) is presented as a multi-criteria optimization problem. For this purpose, we propose in this study a decision support system which aims to discover a set of satisfying solutions (routes) minimizing total travel distance, total tardiness time and the total number of vehicles. These routes satisfy transportation requests without contravening any of the instance specific constraints: schedules requests from clients, the heterogeneous capacity of vehicles. The new encoding and structure algorithm on which this contribution is based uses a genetic algorithm, a selection process using ranking with several Pareto fronts and an elitist selection strategy for replacement. Computational experiments with the benchmark test instances confirm that our approach produces acceptable quality solutions compared with previous results in similar problems in terms of generated solutions and processing time. Experimental results prove that the method of genetic algorithm heuristics is effective in solving the MD-FSMVRP-TW problem and hence has a great potential.

Providing quality of service (QoS) for real-time multimedia applications such as video streaming in mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) is an important challenge. MANETs are characterized by lack of fixed infrastructure, dynamic topology, and limited resources that make more difficult multimedia applications transport and run on this networks. To overcome this challenge, video coding techniques combined to multiple routing paths (multipath) is a promising technique for supporting transmission of multiple video streams with appropriate QoS over mobile ad hoc networks. In this paper, firstly, many issues and different techniques for video streaming over MANET have been reviewed and secondly two multi paths routing protocols (M-AODV and MDSDV) have been evaluated in order to improve QoS for real-time multimedia applications. Results show that none of these two protocols is better than the other. In certain situations (throughput and load network with high mobility) is M-AODV but in others (network load and reliability for large-scale network) is MDSDV protocol which displays good performance. It is also noted that these two protocols provide between acceptable and good quality and a small jitter regardless of nodes number in medium mobility.