Evaluation of Student Perceived Self-Efficacy With the Implementation of a Problem-Based Learning Module

To facilitate the graduation of competent registered nurses, healthcare educators must create learning environments that foster content expertise, problem solving, collaboration, and refined learning skills. Although countless teaching strategies are in existence today, problem-based learning (PBL) has revealed noteworthy potential in healthcare education. In PBL, complex, reality-based problems are used as motivation for students to identify salient concepts, gather data, and ultimately work through posed problems. Considerable evidence supports the use of PBL as a method to promote learning, though examining knowledge alone cannot always assess actual behavioral performance. To ascertain the likelihood learned concepts would be utilized in practice, we can evaluate perceived self- efficacy. According to Bandura, self-efficacy is the degree to which an individual believes that a behavior can be successfully performed to produce a desired outcome. Information learned provides a foundation for performance to transpire, but in the absence of self-efficacy performance may not even be attempted. This study examined the relationship between PBL and perceived self-efficacy. Using a quasi-experimental, non-equivalent control group design, self-efficacy was measured using Schwarzer and Jerusalem\u27s General Self-Efficacy Scale. The study found that the perceived self-efficacy of undergraduate nursing students who participated in a PBL skills laboratory module were significantly higher than their counterparts who studied the same topic in a class not employing PBL

Mechanisms for optical binding

The phenomenon of optical binding is now experimentally very well established. With a recognition of the facility to collect and organize particles held in an optical trap, the related term 'optical matter' has also been gaining currency, highlighting possibilities for a significant interplay between optically induced inter-particle forces and other interactions such as chemical bonding and dispersion forces. Optical binding itself has a variety of interpretations. With some of these explanations being more prominent than others, and their applicability to some extent depending on the nature of the particles involved, a listing of these has to include the following: collective scattering, laser-dressed Casimir forces, virtual photon coupling, optically induced dipole resonance, and plasmon resonance coupling. It is the purpose of this paper to review and to establish the extent of fundamental linkages between these theoretical descriptions, recognizing the value that each has in relating the phenomenon of optical binding to the broader context of other, closely related physical measurements

The Number of Different Binary Functions Generated by NK-Kauffman Networks and the Emergence of Genetic Robustness

We determine the average number $\vartheta (N, K)$, of \textit{NK}-Kauffman networks that give rise to the same binary function. We show that, for $N \gg 1$, there exists a connectivity critical value $K_c$ such that $\vartheta(N,K) \approx e^{\phi N}$ ($\phi > 0$) for $K < K_c$ and $\vartheta(N,K) \approx 1$ for $K > K_c$. We find that $K_c$ is not a constant, but scales very slowly with $N$, as $K_c \approx \log_2 \log_2 (2N / \ln 2)$. The problem of genetic robustness emerges as a statistical property of the ensemble of \textit{NK}-Kauffman networks and impose tight constraints in the average number of epistatic interactions that the genotype-phenotype map can have.Comment: 4 figures 18 page

Proving Continuity of Coinductive Global Bisimulation Distances: A Never Ending Story

We have developed a notion of global bisimulation distance between processes which goes somehow beyond the notions of bisimulation distance already existing in the literature, mainly based on bisimulation games. Our proposal is based on the cost of transformations: how much we need to modify one of the compared processes to obtain the other. Our original definition only covered finite processes, but a coinductive approach allows us to extend it to cover infinite but finitary trees. After having shown many interesting properties of our distance, it was our intention to prove continuity with respect to projections, but unfortunately the issue remains open. Nonetheless, we have obtained several partial results that are presented in this paper.Comment: In Proceedings PROLE 2015, arXiv:1512.0617

Optically induced potential energy landscapes

Multi-dimensional potential energy surfaces are associated with optical binding. A detailed exploration of the available degrees of geometric freedom reveals unexpected turning points, producing intricate patterns of local force and torque. Although optical pair interactions outweigh Casimir-Polder coupling even over short distances, the forces are not always attractive. Numerous local potential minimum and maximum can be located, and mapped on contour diagrams. Islands of stability appear, and structures conducive to the formation of rings. The results, based on quantum electrodynamics, apply to optically trapped molecules, nanoparticles, microparticles and colloids