Perceived Readiness for Practice of Senior Baccalaureate Nursing Students

Nursing education is designed to assist students to become beginning practitioners and clinical experiences are essential to this process. As competition for clinical sites increases, educators need to establish best practices of clinical experiences. This mixed method study examined the psychometric properties of a readiness for practice tool, and explored the effects of a clinical internship experience on the perception of readiness for practice of 483 senior baccalaureate nursing students in Kansas and Missouri. Matched results from data collected twice during the semester confirmed that the clinical internship experience increased perception of readiness for practice, with the most benefit coming from internships scheduled over the full semester or at the end of the semester. Total number of hours or type of assigned unit did not affect readiness for practice. Interviews with 16 study participants added supporting information about variables in the internship experience affecting perception of readiness for practice

A critical appraisal of "The Effect of Hippotherapy on Gait in Patients with Spastic Cerebral Palsy"

This paper’s main goal was to critique the article “The Effect of Hippotherapy on Gait in Patients with Spastic Cerebral Palsy.” Overall, the article is a good source of evidence because its strengths outweighed its weaknesses. The article proved the clinical question of hippotherapy improving gait patterns in patients with cerebral palsy correct. All sections of this article had strengths as well as weaknesses, but generally speaking, it could be considered a credible source on hippotherapy as a physical therapy intervention. There were some limitations on this study, as it was conducted with a small experimental group, was only a week long, and did not have a control group, but further investigations can be conducted in the future to further prove this hypothesis correct

Evaluating quantum generative models via imbalanced data classification benchmarks

A limited set of tools exist for assessing whether the behavior of quantum machine learning models diverges from conventional models, outside of abstract or theoretical settings. We present a systematic application of explainable artificial intelligence techniques to analyze synthetic data generated from a hybrid quantum-classical neural network adapted from twenty different real-world data sets, including solar flares, cardiac arrhythmia, and speech data. Each of these data sets exhibits varying degrees of complexity and class imbalance. We benchmark the quantum-generated data relative to state-of-the-art methods for mitigating class imbalance for associated classification tasks. We leverage this approach to elucidate the qualities of a problem that make it more or less likely to be amenable to a hybrid quantum-classical generative model

Matchgate benchmarking: Scalable benchmarking of a continuous family of many-qubit gates

We propose a method to reliably and efficiently extract the fidelity of many-qubit quantum circuits composed of continuously parametrized two-qubit gates called matchgates. This method, which we call matchgate benchmarking, relies on advanced techniques from randomized benchmarking as well as insights from the representation theory of matchgate circuits. We argue the formal correctness and scalability of the protocol, and moreover deploy it to estimate the performance of matchgate circuits generated by two-qubit XY spin interactions on a quantum processor.Comment: 4+11 pages, 1 figur

Home Builders Energy Awareness as Related to Construction and Design Features of Housing

Energy efficiency in the design and construction of new housing is a subject that has been of little concern to builders and homebuyers alike until the past few years. The need for energy efficiency in new housing is evident as the supplies of energy diminish and the prices continue to rise. Builders have begun to take the initiative and build houses with measures that will cut back on energy consumption. This study is primarily concerned with home builders and their level of energy awareness in relation to energy efficient construction and design features and techniques in new construction.Housing, Design, and Consumer Resource