BSN Students’ Perception of Satisfaction and Self-confidence After a Simulated Mock Code Experience: A Descriptive Study

In the current healthcare environment, nurses are required to provide timely and competent responses to rapidly changing demands resulting from an increasingly expanding wealth of medical knowledge. High fidelity simulation offers unlimited opportunities to practice rare and critical events in a safe and controlled environment. Literature supports the use of simulation for the acquisition of nursing knowledge and skills. However, findings based on the students’ perceptions of satisfaction and self-confidence after these simulated experiences is inconclusive. The purpose of this descriptive study is to describe BSN students’ perceptions of satisfaction and self-confidence after a simulated mock code experience and to determine the relationship between the students’ perceptions of satisfaction/self-confidence and the demographic characteristics. A convenience sample of 50 senior BSN students who were enrolled in a senior-level nursing Leadership and Management course was included in the study. The participants completed a paper-and-pencil five-point Likert scale Student Satisfaction and Self-Confidence in Learning (National League for Nursing, 2004) survey after the simulated mock code experiences. The results indicated that students were satisfied with the mock code simulation (mean=4.49, SD=0.53) and felt confident with code situations after the simulated experience (mean=4.42, SD=0.41). A significant correlation was found between the male students and satisfaction scores. Independent t-tests did not reveal significant differences between satisfaction/self-confidence and past experience as healthcare providers. However, previous experience working as an EMT was found to significantly contribute to a high level of self-confidence after simulated mock code experiences. The findings of this study provide insight into students’ perceptions of self-confidence and satisfaction toward simulation and may assist faculty to appropriately integrate simulation into nursing curriculums

Mixed numerologies interference analysis and inter-numerology interference cancellation for windowed OFDM systems

Extremely diverse service requirements are one of the critical challenges for the upcoming fifth-generation (5G) radio access technologies. As a solution, mixed numerologies transmission is proposed as a new radio air interface by assigning different numerologies to different subbands. However, coexistence of multiple numerologies induces the inter-numerology interference (INI), which deteriorates the system performance. In this paper, a theoretical model for INI is established for windowed orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (W-OFDM) systems. The analytical expression of the INI power is derived as a function of the channel frequency response of interfering subcarrier, the spectral distance separating the aggressor and the victim subcarrier, and the overlapping windows generated by the interferer's transmitter windows and the victim's receiver window. Based on the derived INI power expression, a novel INI cancellation scheme is proposed by dividing the INI into a dominant deterministic part and an equivalent noise part. A soft-output ordered successive interference cancellation (OSIC) algorithm is proposed to cancel the dominant interference, and the residual interference power is utilized as effective noise variance for the calculation of log-likelihood ratios (LLRs) for bits. Numerical analysis shows that the INI theoretical model matches the simulated results, and the proposed interference cancellation algorithm effectively mitigates the INI and outperforms the state-of-the-art W-OFDM receiver algorithms

Oxymatrine inhibits proliferation and migration of breast cancer cells by inhibiting miRNA-188 and upregulating its target gene, PTEN

Purpose: To explore the potential biological functions of oxymatrine on breast cancer (BCa) cells and the underlying molecular mechanism.Methods: Relative levels of microRNA-188 (miRNA-188) and PTEN (gene of phosphate and tension homology deleted on chromosome ten) in BCa cells, MDA-MB-231 and TB549, were determined. The influence of oxymatrine treatment, miRNA-188 and PTEN on proliferative and migratory abilities in BCa cells were assessed by 3-(4,5-imethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT), cell counting kit-8 (CCK-8) and Transwell assay, respectively. The binding relationship between miRNA-188 and PTEN was evaluated by dual-luciferase reporter gene assay.Results: Oxymatrine downregulated miRNA-188 and upregulated PTEN in BCa cells. Proliferative and migratory activities in BCa were inhibited by treatment of oxymatrine (p < 0.05). Dual-luciferase reporter gene assay results indicated that PTEN was the target gene of miRNA-188. Furthermore, rescue experiments demonstrated that the regulatory loop, oxymatrine/miRNA-188/PTEN, was involved in the regulation of the migration and proliferation of BCa.Conclusion: Oxymatrine treatment inhibits BCa progression by downregulating miRNA-188, leading to the upregulation of PTEN. The results of the current study may provide new insight into the diagnosis and treatment of BCa

Effect of chromatic dispersion induced chirp on the temporal coherence property of individual beam from spontaneous four wave mixing

Temporal coherence of individual signal or idler beam, determined by the spectral correlation property of photon pairs, is important for realizing quantum interference among independent sources. To understand the effect of chirp on the temporal coherence property, two series of experiments are investigated by introducing different amount of chirp into either the pulsed pump or individual signal (idler) beam. In the first one, based on spontaneous four wave mixing in a piece of optical fiber, the intensity correlation function of the filtered individual signal beam, which characterizes the degree of temporal coherence, is measured as a function of the chirp of pump. The results demonstrate that the chirp of pump pulses decreases the degree of temporal coherence. In the second one, a Hong-Ou-Mandel type two-photon interference experiment with the signal beams generated in two different fibers is carried out. The results illustrate that the chirp of individual beam does not change the temporal coherence degree, but affect the temporal mode matching. To achieve high visibility, apart from improving the coherence degree by minimizing the chirp of pump, mode matching should be optimized by managing the chirps of individual beams.Comment: 17pages, 4figure

An all fiber source of frequency entangled photon pairs

We present an all fiber source of frequency entangled photon pairs by using four wave mixing in a Sagnac fiber loop. Special care is taken to suppress the impurity of the frequency entanglement by cooling the fiber and by matching the polarization modes of the photon pairs counter-propagating in the fiber loop. Coincidence detection of signal and idler photons, which are created in pair and in different spatial modes of the fiber loop, shows the quantum interference in the form of spatial beating, while the single counts of the individual signal (idler) photons keep constant. When the production rate of photon pairs is about 0.013 pairs/pulse, the envelope of the quantum interference reveals a visibility of $(95\pm 2)$, which is close to the calculated theoretical limit 97.4%Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.