Test Anxiety in Undergraduate Nursing Students: Implementation of a Brief Mindfulness Exercise

Nursing students experience test anxiety that may compromise their performance on class examinations, affecting their trajectory through their prelicensure nursing program. Nurse educators significantly impact student outcomes throughout the curriculum and are integral in supporting students with test anxiety. It is imperative to recognize precipitating factors of test anxiety and appoint prophylactic interventions for alleviating stressful situations. In turn, this will provide nursing students with practical and supportive strategies to alleviate testing-induced stress. This scholarly paper discusses the implementation of a brief mindfulness exercise before class examinations to combat test anxiety in undergraduate nursing students at a small midwestern college. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected to determine the effectiveness of the brief mindfulness activity before tests. This paper discusses methods, interventions, and results from the quality improvement project

Hybridization and invasion: one of North America's most devastating invasive plants shows evidence for a history of interspecific hybridization

Hybridization has been hypothesized to influence invasion through the generation of novel phenotypes and/or increased levels of genetic variance. Based on morphology, hybrids between diffuse knapweed and spotted knapweed, two invasive plants in North America, are present in the invaded range. Some individuals within most diffuse knapweed sites in North America exhibit intermediate diffuse × spotted floral morphology. We examined hybridization at the molecular level, using amplified fragment length polymorphisms. Approximately a quarter of the assayed North American diffuse knapweed individuals exhibited evidence of introgression from spotted knapweed. However, plants with intermediate morphology did not show evidence of mixed ancestry more often than the plants with typical diffuse knapweed morphology. The high proportion of hybrid individuals in North American diffuse knapweed sites found here, combined with evidence from recent studies, suggests that diffuse knapweed was likely introduced with admixed individuals, and the hybrids are not newly created postintroduction. A century of backcrossing with diffuse knapweed has likely decoupled the relationship between morphology and admixture at the molecular level. In contrast to the scenario encountered in North America, in the native range where diploid diffuse and spotted knapweed overlap, hybrid swarms are common. In such sites, the floral phenotype aligns more closely with the genotype

Laura Locken's Quick Files

The Quick Files feature was discontinued and it’s files were migrated into this Project on March 11, 2022. The file URL’s will still resolve properly, and the Quick Files logs are available in the Project’s Recent Activity

Super hypersensitivity to hygromycin B (S-HHY) gene functions converge at the trans-golgi and late endosome interface have a role in tor1p location to the vacuole

The vacuole in Saccharomyces cerevisiae serves as a model for the mammalian lysosome. In a genome wide screen for mutants with severe growth hypersensitivity to hygromycin B, our lab identified 14 HHY genes. Each of the hhy mutants is defective in vacuolar trafficking and/or function and also sensitive to rapamycin and caffeine, suggesting a compromised target of rapamycin (TOR) kinase pathway. My research divides the hhy mutants into two groups based on quantitative growth analyses in the presence of hygromycin B. (1) a super affected group (s-hhy's) and (2) a dose-dependent group (d-hhy's). The s-HHY genes include CHC1, DRS2, SAC1, VPS1, VPS34, VPS45, VPS52, and VPS54. Evaluation of the known functions of s-HHY gene products reveals vesicular trafficking function at the trans-Golgi and late endosome interface to be a common factor. In yeast, the TORC1 complex localizes to the vacuole. Because a compromised TORC1 complex signaling is suggested in hhy mutant strains due to their caffeine or rapamycin sensitivity, I hypothesized that compromised TORC1 signaling in HHY's may be due to defects in the vacuolar localization of Tor1 kinase. To assess Tor1 kinase localization, we utilized a strain expressing endogenously tagged Tor1-GFP and assayed localization to the vacuolar membrane in each of the s-hhy mutants using confocal microscopy. In wild-type cells, Tor1-GFP co-localizes with the vacuolar membrane marker FM4-64 while s-hhy deletion strains fail to localize Tor1-GFP to the vacuolar membrane when treated with hygromycin B. Our results implicate that Tor1p is transported to the vacuole membrane via the late endosome (CPY pathway) and not the ALP (Vam3) pathway. Additionally, s-hhy mutants are unable to recover growth after a 4-hour treatment with hygromycin B, similar to EG0 mutants, which fail to exit from G0 after treatment with the TORC1 inhibiting drug rapamycin. Based on our data, we propose a model in which the s-HHY gene functions in vesicular trafficking at the trans-Golgi/late endosome interface are involved in recruitment and subsequent transport of Tor1p to the vacuolar membrane, and that interface is hypersensitive to hygromycin B. We also propose that Tor1 kinase localization at the vacuole is essential for its cell cycle regulatory function

Analyzing Artifacts In The Time Domain Waveform To Locate Wire Faults

Wire integrity is a growing concern with aging vehicles, especially high vibration variants like helicopters, tiltrotor aircraft, and many mobile ground weapons systems. Wiring failures on these systems present a growing safety concern and can lead to loss of equipment and life. This paper presents a novel adaptive time domain reflectometry (TDR) algorithm to analyze artifacts found on the reflected time domain waveform of a high-voltage, low-energy pulse transmitted down wires with uncontrolled or controlled impedances. This method allows for detection of intermittent and hard faults. Most time domain reflectometers (TDRs) are used to measure cable lengths and distances to hard opens or shorts. Existing technology has extended TDR measurement capability to intermittent faults. Current detection methods for intermittent faults require an experienced engineer to interpret the returned measurement and waveform to confirm its accuracy. To make this technology more accessible, the repeatability and accuracy of the automated measurements need to be improved. The following method improves the unadjusted accuracy by three times. This paper reviews the theory of TDR and presents implementation and results of the proposed algorithm on real-world data. © 1998-2012 IEEE

Analyzing artifacts in the time domain waveform to locate wire faults

Wire integrity is a growing concern with aging vehicles, especially high vibration variants like helicopters, tiltrotor aircraft, and many mobile ground weapons systems. Wiring failures on these systems present a growing safety concern and can lead to loss of equipment and life. This paper presents a novel adaptive time domain reflectometry (TDR) algorithm to analyze artifacts found on the reflected time domain waveform of a high-voltage, low-energy pulse transmitted down wires with uncontrolled or controlled impedances. This method allows for detection of intermittent and hard faults. Most time domain reflectometers (TDRs) are used to measure cable lengths and distances to hard opens or shorts. Existing technology has extended TDR measurement capability to intermittent faults. Current detection methods for intermittent faults require an experienced engineer to interpret the returned measurement and waveform to confirm its accuracy. To make this technology more accessible, the repeatability and accuracy of the automated measurements need to be improved. The following method improves the unadjusted accuracy by three times. This paper reviews the theory of TDR and presents implementation and results of the proposed algorithm on real-world data. © 1998-2012 IEEE