Performance Evaluation of CNN-based Transfer Learning for COVID-19 Pneumonia Identification with Various Levels of Layer Partial Freezing

Pneumonia is a serious complication of coronavirus that can be fatal, especially among the elderly. Early diagnosis of COVID-19 pneumonia increases the likelihood of recovery and prevents the further spread of the virus. Chest X-ray (CXR) images can be utilized to detect specific signs associated with COVID-19, but this needs well-trained radiologists. Alternatively, deep Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based models have been successfully applied to diagnose COVID-19 and the associated pneumonia from CXR using transfer learning. This study explores various levels combining layer fine-tuning and freezing in two popular pretrained CNN-based models, VGG16 and ResNET50, and how these combinations influence the learning transferability of pretrained models to improve the identification of COVID-19 pneumonia from CXR images. We found that robust models can be learned with less labeled data in a shorter training time by applying partial freezing instead of the full network fine-tuning without sacrificing a significant portion of their diagnostic performance. © 2022 IEEE.

Public Perception of Pharmacist's Role during COVID-19 Outbreak in Jordan

Background: The pandemic COVID-19 requires collaborative teamwork by all healthcare professionals including Pharmacists who could help in combating epidemic diseases by providing several pharmaceutical services. Nevertheless, public perception of pharmacist's role in providing health service is controversial Methods: A cross-sectional web-based design validated survey of 25 items was used to explore patients' opinion about pharmacist's ability to provide different health services during COVID-19 pandemic. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was conducted to evaluate the best model for the questionnaire. The association between different demographic variables and awareness about pharmacist's role was evaluated using Pearson correlation, Mann-Whitney u test and Kruskal-Wallis one-way analysis of variance. Result(s): A total of 668 persons participated in the study. The mean (SD) of the respondent questionnaire scores was 97.1 (12.6) and the possible maximum score was 115 (12.9). Higher awareness score was associated with increased age, female gender, lower educational level, living out of Amman the capital, being college or university student or being employed in medical field. Conclusion(s): The positive public perception toward pharmacist role shown in the present study enlighten the need to expand pharmacist role to be more engaged in providing different health services during the disaster or normal conditions. Copyright © 2022 DSR Publishers/The University of Jordan. All Rights Reserved.

Online Engineering Education: Laboratories During the Pandemic - A Case Study

Engineering laboratories plays a key role in the engineering education curricula. Virtual or remote laboratory concept already existed in several institutions that provide a well-designed platform for students to access labs remotely with similar experience to physical labs. However, this type of labs, remote lab, has limitations in term of engineering hands on experience and essential social skills students need for their future engineering practice. As educational institutions forced to switch from traditional face-to-face to online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was no option but to utilize the online laboratory resources and platforms available. Fully remote or blended solutions were provided for students to assure meeting the specific learning outcomes of engineering courses. This paper will focus on highlighting a specific case study during the pandemic when switching from the traditional face-to-face learning for an engineering lab course to fully online. © 2022 IEEE.

The reality of electronic distance learning in the presence of COVID19 pandemic from Jordanian student perspective

This paper identify the reality of distance learning in the presence of the emerging corona pandemic "COVID 19" from the student point of view in the practice in Jordan student as case study. To achieve the aim of the study, the descriptive and analytical approach was used, whereby we prepare an electronic questionnaire that include 20 questions that were distributed electronically to a random sample of 318 students. The result of the study conclude the following: The importance of using e-learning systems in distance learning programs. Some difficulty face the student during the use of distance learning programs such as lack of resources. Student absence shows statistically significant differences at each student levels in responses of the sample student members. The results of the paper study recommend and encouraging the ministry of education in Jordan to benefit from e-learning technology to facilitate and improve educational learning practice. © 2021 IEEE.

Knowledge and attitudes of family physicians towards coronavirus disease 2019 infection burden: A cross-sectional study

Objectives: Investigate the knowledge and attitudes of family physicians towards coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Methods: Data were collected from family medicine residents at King Fahd Medical City in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, using an online questionnaire that assessed demographics, knowledge about COVID-19, and attitudes towards the disease. Data were analyzed using Stata software version 14. Results: A total of 179 participants (median age: 28 years) responded;94 (52.5%) were female. Average knowledge score on a scale of 0-10 was 8.64 +/- 0.97. Knowledge scores were similar between males and females (mean deviation *MD+ = -0.14, p = 0.3). Fourth-year residents had higher knowledge scores compared to those in their first (MD = 1.2, p<.001), second (MD = 0.82, p = 0.001), or third (MD = 0.69, p = 0.02) years. Mean attitude score on a scale of 0-18 was 15.6 +/- 1.3. Females exhibited slightly higher positive attitude scores (MD = 0.44, p = 0.02). Conclusion: Residents demonstrated high knowledge and positive attitudes towards COVID-19. More experienced physicians exhibited higher knowledge scores;attitude scores were independent of experience.