Teachers’ Intention to Use Digital Resources in Classroom Teaching: The Role of Teacher Competence, Peer Influence, and Perceived Image

Objectives: Rapid advancements in information processing and technology are causing transformations in education at an unprecedented pace. The use of digital resources is becoming essential for educators to ensure the effectiveness of their teaching. There is thus a need to transform ways and means of educating teachers to meet the new challenges. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that determine teacher intention to use digital resources in classroom teaching. Method: The study adopted a single cross-sectional design, in which questionnaires with pre-established scales were completed by 276 university teachers from three major public universities in the Kashmir region of India. The collected data were subjected to descriptive, correlation, and regression analysis. Results: Findings suggest that intention to use digital resources in the classroom is significantly influenced by teachers’ perceptions of their own competence, perceived usefulness and ease of use of technology and digital resources, and peer influence. Among these factors, perceived competence exerts the strongest influence. Results indicate that perceived social image has no significant impact on intention to use digital resources. Conclusions: The study supports the view that teacher competence and peer influence are two key determining factors for the use of digital resources. Additionally, it demonstrates that digital resources must be perceived to offer potential benefits and ease of use in order to gain widespread acceptance among teachers. Implications: This research advances the understanding of digital resource adoption in classroom teaching, particularly in developing countries like India. The findings provide critical direction to policymakers and digital resource developers to enhance use of digital resources in classroom teaching by prioritizing the development of useful and user-friendly resources. Moreover, universities should organize training programs to enhance teachers’ proficiency in utilizing digital resources for effective teaching

Control Over Nursing Practice in Saudi Arabia: Nurses’ Perspective

Background-Control over nursing practice is participatory process through which nurses have input and engage in decision making about practice policies and issues, as well as personnel issues affecting nurses. It is influenced by various internal and external factors. Staff nurses describe Control Over Nursing Practice (CONP) as a professional nursing function made up of a variety of activities and outcomes. CONP has been identified as an important work environment attribute to ensure patient safety and has been more strongly predictive of nurses’ perceptions of the effectiveness of patient care than empowerment. Patients are more satisfied thru their nursing care when nurses have control over their practice.Aim-The aim of this study was to explore the perception of nurses for their level of control over nursing Practice .Methods-A cross-sectional descriptive research design was used for this study. Quota sampling technique was used to recruit nurses working in one of the biggest MOH hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Participants were asked to complete the Control over Nursing Practice (CONP) Scale.Results- A total of 465 nurses (364 staff nurses and 101 nurse managers) perceived their control over nursing practice (CONP) moderately (5.27±1.10). The majority of nurses (79%) expressed that it is highly important to have a CONP, and (78%) they like to have CONP in their work setting. 46.9% of the participants selected charge nurses/head nurses as the most influential group related to their CONP.Conclusion- This study concludes that the control over nursing practice is an important function that the nurses are expected to do in their clinical practice, however, most of the nurses participated in this study consider that CONP is importance and they like to have control over their practice, unfortunately, they are not practicing it feasibly in their work setting

Saving energy in aggressive intrusion detection through dynamic latency sensitivity recognition

In an always connected world, cyber-attacks and computer security breaches can produce significant financial damages as well as introduce new risks and menaces in everyday's life. As a consequence, more and more sophisticated packet screening/filtering solutions are deployed everywhere, typically on network border devices, in order to sanitize Internet traffic. Despite the obvious benefits associated to the proactive detection of security threats, these devices, by performing deep packet inspection and inline analysis, may both affect latency-sensitive traffic introducing non-negligible delays, and increase the energy demand at the network element level. Starting from these considerations, we present a selective routing and intrusion detection technique based on dynamic statistical analysis. Our technique separates latency-sensitive traffic from latency-insensitive one and adaptively organizes the intrusion detection activities over multiple nodes. This allows suppressing directly at the network ingress, when possible, all the undesired components of latency-insensitive traffic and distributing on the innermost nodes the security check for latency sensitive flows, prioritizing routing activities over security scanning ones. Our final goal is demonstrating that selective intrusion detection can result in significant energy savings without adversely affecting latency-sensitive traffic by introducing unacceptable processing delays. \ua9 2017 Elsevier Ltd

Singularity in the boundary resistance between superfluid 4^4He and a solid surface

We report new measurements in four cells of the thermal boundary resistance $R$ between copper and $^4$He below but near the superfluid-transition temperature $T_\lambda$. For $10^{-7} \leq t \equiv 1 - T/T_\lambda \leq 10^{-4}$ fits of $R = R_0 t^{x_b} + B_0$ to the data yielded $x_b \simeq 0.18$, whereas a fit to theoretical values based on the renormalization-group theory yielded $x_b = 0.23$. Alternatively, a good fit of the theory to the data could be obtained if the {\it amplitude} of the prediction was reduced by a factor close to two. The results raise the question whether the boundary conditions used in the theory should be modified.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, revte

Rotons and Quantum Evaporation from Superfluid 4He

The probability of evaporation induced by $R^+$ and $R^-$ rotons at the surface of superfluid helium is calculated using time dependent density functional theory. We consider excitation energies and incident angles such that phonons do not take part in the scattering process. We predict sizable evaporation rates, which originate entirely from quantum effects. Results for the atomic reflectivity and for the probability of the roton change-mode reflection are also presented.Comment: 11 pages, REVTEX, 3 figures available upon request or at http://anubis.science.unitn.it/~dalfovo/papers/papers.htm

HDAC Regulates Transcription at the Outset of Axolotl Tail Regeneration

Tissue regeneration is associated with complex changes in gene expression and post-translational modifications of proteins, including transcription factors and histones that comprise chromatin. We tested 172 compounds designed to target epigenetic mechanisms in an axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) embryo tail regeneration assay. A relatively large number of compounds (N = 55) inhibited tail regeneration, including 18 histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi). In particular, romidepsin, an FDA-approved anticancer drug, potently inhibited tail regeneration when embryos were treated continuously for 7 days. Additional experiments revealed that romidepsin acted within a very narrow, post-injury window. Romidepsin treatment for only 1-minute post amputation inhibited regeneration through the first 7 days, however after this time, regeneration commenced with variable outgrowth of tailfin tissue and abnormal patterning. Microarray analysis showed that romidepsin altered early, transcriptional responses at 3 and 6-hour post-amputation, especially targeting genes that are implicated in tumor cell death, as well as genes that function in the regulation of transcription, cell differentiation, cell proliferation, pattern specification, and tissue morphogenesis. Our results show that HDAC activity is required at the time of tail amputation to regulate the initial transcriptional response to injury and regeneration

Healing of the aponeurosis during recovery from aponeurotomy: morphological and histological adaptation and related changes in mechanical properties

Aponeurotomy, which is the transection of an aponeurosis perpendicular to its length, is performed to lengthen spastic and/or short muscles. During recovery, the cut ends of the aponeurosis are reconnected by new connective tissue bridging both ends. The aim of this study is to investigate the histological features of this new connective tissue as well as its mechanical properties after recovery from aponeurotomy. For this purpose, aponeurotomy was performed on the proximal aponeurosis of rat m. gastrocnemius medialis (GM), which was followed by six weeks of recovery. The lengths of aponeurotic tissues were measured as a function of active muscle length. The results are compared to a control group as well as to the acute effects and a sham operated group. Activation of the muscle at increasing lengths after aponeurotomy caused a gap between the cut ends of the aponeurosis. However, after recovery, new connective tissue is formed bridging the aponeurotic ends, consisting of thin collagen fibres, which are densely packed and generally arranged in the direction of the aponeurosis. The number of fibroblasts was three to five times higher than that of aponeurotic tissue of the intact parts as well as that of the acute and sham operated muscles. The strain of the new connective tissue as a function of active muscle length was shown to be about three times higher than that of the aponeurosis. It is concluded that the inserted new aponeurotic tissue is more compliant and that the aponeurosis becomes 10-15% longer than in untreated muscle. As a consequence, the muscle fibres located distally to the new aponeurotic tissue will become shorter than prior to aponeurotomy. This explains a shift of the length-force curve, which favours the restoration of the range of joint motion. © 2004 Orthopaedic Research Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved