Factors Related to Academic Success Among Nursing Students: A Descriptive Correlational Research Study

Background:The current rise in employment is improving forecasts for the future supply of registered nurses; however sizeable shortages are still projected. With the intention of improving academic success in nursing students, related factors need to be better understood. Objectives: The purpose of the correlational study was to describe the relationship between emotional intelligence, psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being, and academic success in undergraduate and graduate nursing students. Design/setting: A descriptive correlational design was utilized. The study was set in a private Catholic university. Participants: There were 124 participants. There were 59% undergraduate and 41% graduate students. Methods: Background data, in addition to the Spreitzer Psychological Empowerment Scale, the Wagnild and Young Resilience Scale, and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale and the Mayer –Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test, was collected from students who met study criteria. Results: In a combined sample, academic success was correlated with overall spiritual well-being, empowerment and resilience. Although academic success was not correlated with overall emotional intelligence, it was correlated with the emotional intelligence branch four (managing emotions) score.When undergraduate and graduate students were considered separately, only one correlation was found to be significantly related to academic success in the undergraduate sample, namely, emotional intelligence branch one (perceiving emotions). When examining the data from just graduate level nurses, significant relationshipswere found between total emotional intelligence with academic success, resilience with academic success, and psychological empowerment with academic success. Conclusion: The significant relationship between psychological empowerment, resilience, spiritual well-being and academic success in this study supports the statements in the literature that these concepts may play an important role in persistence through the challenges of nursing education. Research is needed to examine if strategies to enhance empowerment, resilience, and spiritual well-being can increase academic success in a test-retest design

Spectroscopic ellipsometry on thin titanium oxide layers grown on titanium by plasma oxidation

Abstract : Electronic devices based on tunnel junctions require tools able to accurately control the thickness of thin metal and oxide layers on the order of the nanometer. This article shows that multisample ellipsometry is an accurate method to reach this goal on plain uniform layers, in particular for titanium. From these measurements, the authors carefully studied the oxidation rate of titanium thin films in an oxygen plasma. The authors found that the oxide thickness saturates at 5.4±0.4 nm5.4±0.4 nm after 10 min in the plasma with an ion acceleration power of 30 W. Increasing this power to 240 W increases the saturation value to 7.6±0.4 nm7.6±0.4 nm. An x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy study of the oxide has shown that the oxide created by O2O2 plasma is stoichiometric (TiO2)(TiO2). The developed model was also used to measure the thicknesses of titanium and titanium oxide layers that have been polished using a chemical mechanical planarization process and a material removal rate of 5.9 nm/min is found with our planarization parameters. I. INTRODUCTIO

Emotional Intelligence and Spiritual Well-Being

Understanding factors that influence spiritual well-being may improve nurses’ spiritual caregiving. This study examined relationships between emotional intelligence (EI) and spiritual well-being (SWB) in undergraduate and graduate nursing students. Using the Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS), relationships were found between managing emotion and spiritual well-being, and managing emotion and existential well-being. Implications for education and practice are discussed

Tris(ethane-1,2-diamine-κ2 N,N′)cobalt(II) cis-aqua-2κO-μ-cyanido-1:2κ2 C:N-hepta­cyanido-1κ7 C-bis­(ethane-1,2-diamine-2κ2 N,N′)cobalt(II)molybdenum(IV) dihydrate

The title compound, [Co(C2H8N2)3][CoMo(CN)8(C2H8N2)2(H2O)]·2H2O, is isostructural with the NiII analogue. The MoIV atom is coordinated by eight cyanide ligands, one of which forms a bridge to a CoII atom that is itself coordinated by two bidentate ethane-1,2-diamine (en) ligands and one water mol­ecule. Another CoII complex, coordinated to three bidentate en ligands, acts as the counter-ion. The crystal structure contains O—H⋯N/O, N—H⋯N/O and C—H⋯N/O hydrogen bonds, which form a three-dimensional network

Coordination of ECA Rules by Verification and Control

International audienceEvent-Condition-Action (ECA) rules are a widely used language for the high level specification of controllers in adaptive systems, such as Cyber-Physical Systems and smart environments, where devices equipped with sensors and actuators are controlled according to a set of rules. The evaluation and execution of every ECA rule is considered to be independent from the others, but interactions of rule actions can cause the system behaviors to be unpredictable or unsafe. Typical problems are in redundancy of rules, inconsistencies, circularity, or application-dependent safety issues. Hence, there is a need for coordination of ECA rule-based systems in order to ensure safety objectives. We propose a tool-supported method for verifying and controlling the correct interactions of rules, relying on formal models related to reactive systems, and Discrete Controller Synthesis (DCS) to generate correct rule controllers

Signatures of Galaxy-Cluster Interactions: Spiral Galaxy Rotation Curve Asymmetry, Shape, and Extent

The environmental dependencies of the characteristics of spiral galaxy rotation curves are studied in this work. We use our large, homogeneously collected sample of 510 cluster spiral galaxy rotation curves to test the claim that the shape of a galaxy's rotation curve strongly depends on its location within the cluster, and thus presumably on the strength of the local intracluster medium and on the frequency and strength of tidal interactions with the cluster and cluster galaxies. Our data do not corroborate such a scenario, consistent with the fact that Tully-Fisher residuals are independent of galaxy location within the cluster; while the average late-type spiral galaxy shows more rise in the outer parts of its rotation curve than does the typical early-type spiral galaxy, there is no apparent trend for either subset with cluster environment. We also investigate as a function of cluster environment rotation curve asymmetry and the radial distribution of H II region tracers within galactic disks. Mild trends with projected cluster-centric distance are observed: (i) the (normalized) radial extent of optical line emission averaged over all spiral galaxy types shows a 4%+/-2% increase per Mpc of galaxy-cluster core separation, and (ii) rotation curve asymmetry falls by a factor of two between the inner and outer cluster for early-type spirals (a negligible decrease is found for late-type spirals). Such trends are consistent with spiral disk perturbations or even the stripping of the diffuse, outermost gaseous regions within the disks as galaxies pass through the dense cluster cores.Comment: 17 pages; to appear in the April 2001 Astronomical Journa

Long-Term Protective Effects of Methamphetamine Preconditioning Against Single-Day Methamphetamine Toxic Challenges

Methamphetamine (METH) use is associated with neurotoxic effects which include decreased levels of dopamine (DA), serotonin (5-HT) and their metabolites in the brain. We have shown that escalating METH dosing can protect against METH induced neurotoxicity in rats sacrificed within 24 hours after a toxic METH challenge. The purpose of the current study was to investigate if the protective effects of METH persisted for a long period of time. We also tested if a second challenge with a toxic dose of METH would cause further damage to monoaminergic terminals. Saline-pretreated rats showed significant METH-induced decreases in striatal DA and 5-HT levels in rats sacrificed 2 weeks after the challenge. Rats that received two METH challenges showed no further decreases in striatal DA or 5-HT levels in comparison to the single METH challenge. In contrast, METH-pretreated rats showed significant protection against METH-induced striatal DA and 5-HT depletion. In addition, the METH challenge causes substantial decreases in cortical 5-HT levels which were not further potentiated by a second drug challenge. METH preconditioning provided almost complete protection against METH –induced 5-HT depletion. These results are consistent with the idea that METH pretreatment renders the brain refractory to METH-induced degeneration of brain monoaminergic systems